In 1961 India was on the brink of mass famine.

[2] Borlaug was invited to India by the adviser

to the Indian minister of agriculture M. S.
Swaminathan. Despite bureaucratic hurdles
imposed by India's grain monopolies, the Ford
Foundation and Indian government collaborated
to import wheat seed from CIMMYT. Punjab
was selected by the Indian government to be the
first site to try the new crops because of its
reliable water supply and a history of
agricultural success. India began its own Green
Revolution program of plant breeding, irrigation
development, and financing of agrochemicals.
[3]
Problems in Africa
There have been numerous attempts to introduce
the successful concepts from the Mexican and
Indian projects into Africa.[11] These programs
have generally been less successful, for a
number of reasons. Reasons cited include
widespread corruption, insecurity, a lack of
infrastructure, and a general lack of will on the
part of the governments. Yet environmental
factors, such as the availability of water for
irrigation, the high diversity in slope and soil
types in one given area are also reasons why the
Green Revolution is not so successful in Africa.

[edit] Technologies
The within the Green Revolution spread
technologies that had already existed, but had
not been widely used outside industrialized
nations. These technologies included pesticides,
irrigation projects, synthetic nitrogen fertilizer
and improved crop varieties developed through
the conventional, science-based methods
available at the time.
The novel technological development of the
Green Revolution was the production of novel
wheat cultivars. Agronomists bred cultivars of
maize, wheat, and rice that are generally referred
to as HYVs or “high-yielding varieties”. HYVs
have higher nitrogen-absorbing potential than
other varieties. Since cereals that absorbed extra
nitrogen would typically lodge, or fall over
before harvest, semi-dwarfing genes were bred
into their genomes. A Japanese dwarf wheat
cultivar (Norin 10 wheat), which was sent to
Washington, D.C. by Cecil Salmon, was
instrumental in developing Green Revolution
wheat cultivars.
Effects on food security
Main article: Food security
The effects of the Green Revolution on global
food security are difficult to assess because of
the complexities involved in food systems.
The world population has grown by about four
billion since the beginning of the Green
Revolution and many believe that, without the
Revolution, there would have been greater
famine and malnutrition. India saw annual wheat
production rise from 10 million tons in the
1960s to 73 million in 2006.[24] The average
person in the developing world consumes
roughly 25% more calories per day now than
before the Green Revolution.[20] Between 1950
and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed
agriculture around the globe, world grain
production increased by over 250%[25]
Criticisms
[edit] Food security
[edit] Malthusian criticism
Some criticisms generally involve some
variation of the Malthusian principle of
population. Such concerns often revolve around
the idea that the Green Revolution is
unsustainable,[27] and argue that humanity is
now in a state of overpopulation with regards to
the sustainable carrying capacity and ecological
demands on the Earth.
Although 36 million people die each year as a
direct or indirect result of hunger and poor
nutrition,[28] Malthus' more extreme predictions
have frequently failed to materialize. In 1798
Thomas Malthus made his prediction of
impending famine.[29] The world's population
had doubled by 1923 and doubled again by 1973
without fulfilling Malthus' prediction.
Malthusian Paul R. Ehrlich, in his 1968 book
The Population Bomb, said that "India couldn't
possibly feed two hundred million more people
by 1980" and "Hundreds of millions of people
will starve to death in spite of any crash
programs."[29] Ehrlich's warnings failed to
materialize when India became self-sustaining in
cereal production in 1974 (six years later) as a
result of the introduction of Norman Borlaug's
dwarf wheat varieties.[29]
Environmental impact
[edit] Pesticides
Green Revolution agriculture relies on extensive
use of pesticides, which are necessary to limit
the high levels of pest damage that inevitably
occur in monocropping - the practice of
producing or growing one single crop over a
wide area.
[edit] Water
Industrialized agriculture with its high yield
varieties are extremely water intensive. In the
US, agriculture consumes 70% of all fresh water
resources. For example, the Southwest uses 36%
of the nations water while at the same time only
receiving 6% of the country's rainfall.[citation
needed] Only 60% of the water used for
irrigation comes from surface water supplies.
The other 40% comes from underground
aquifers that are being used up in a way similar
to topsoil that makes the aquifers,[citation
needed] as Pfeiffer says, “for all intents and
purposes non renewable resources.”[citation
needed] The Ogallala Aquifer is essential to a
huge portion of central and southwest plain
states, but has been at annual overdrafts of 130-
160% in excess of replacement. This irrigation
source for America's bread basket will become
entirely unproductive in another 30 years or so.
[citation needed]
Fish are disappearing through another form of
agricultural run off as well.[citation needed]
When nitrogen-intensive fertilizers wash into
waterways it results in an explosion of algae and
other microorganisms that lead to oxygen
depletion resulting in “dead zones”, killing off
fish and other creatures.
Health impact
The consumption of the chemicals and
pesticides used to kill pests by humans in some
cases may be increasing the likelihood of cancer
in some of the rural villages using them. Poor
farming practices including non-compliance to
usage of masks and over-usage of the chemicals
compound this situation.[40]
[edit] Pesticides and cancer
Long term exposure to pesticides such as
organochlorines, creosote, and sulfallate have
been correlated with higher cancer rates and
organochlorines DDT, chlordane, and lindane as
tumor promoters in animals.[citation needed]
Contradictory epidemiologic studies in humans
have linked phenoxy acid herbicides or
contaminants in them with soft tissue sarcoma
(STS) and malignant lymphoma, organochlorine
insecticides with STS, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
(NHL), leukemia, and, less consistently, with
cancers of the lung and breast,
organophosphorous compounds with NHL and
leukemia, and triazine herbicides with ovarian
cancer.[41]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-41"[42]
Punjab case
See also: Green Revolution in India
The Indian state of Punjab pioneered green
revolution among the other states transforming
India into a food-surplus country.[44] The state
is witnessing serious consequences of intensive
farming using chemicals and pesticide.
[49]
[edit] Organic farming
About four decades after the Green Revolution
widely helped the world to be able to produce
food in sufficient levels, a small percentage of
farmers in India have chosen to employ organic
farming methods in response to side effects from
their adoption of modern agriculture techniques.
[50]
[edit] Norman Borlaug's response to criticism
He dismissed certain claims of critics, but did
take other concerns seriously and stated that his
work has been:
"a change in the right direction, but it has
not transformed the world into a Utopia".
[51]
Of environmental lobbyists he said:
"some of the environmental lobbyists of the
Western nations are the salt of the earth, but
many of them are elitists.
Environmental impact Pesticides
Green Revolution agriculture relies on extensive
use of pesticides, which are necessary to limit
the high levels of pest damage that inevitably
occur in monocropping - the practice of
producing or growing one single crop over a
wide area.
[edit] Water
Industrialized agriculture with its high yield
varieties are extremely water intensive. In the
US, agriculture consumes 70% of all fresh water
resources. For example, the Southwest uses 36%
of the nations water while at the same time only
receiving 6% of the country's rainfall.[citation
needed] Only 60% of the water used for
irrigation comes from surface water supplies.
This irrigation source for America's bread basket
will become entirely unproductive in another 30
years or so.[citation needed]
[edit] Biodiversity
The spread of Green Revolution agriculture
affected both agricultural biodiversity and wild
biodiversity.[37] There is little disagreement that
the Green Revolution acted to reduce
agricultural biodiversity, as it relied on just a
few high-yield varieties of each crop.This has
led to concerns about the susceptibility of a food
supply to pathogens that cannot be controlled by
agrochemicals, as well as the permanent loss of
many valuable genetic traits bred into traditional
varieties over thousands of years. .[39]
About four decades after the Green Revolution
widely helped the world to be able to produce
food in sufficient levels, a small percentage of
farmers in India have chosen to employ organic
farming methods in response to side effects from
their adoption of modern agriculture
techniques.However, the techniques which these
farmers perceive as harmful enough to sacrifice
as much as a half of their food production are
often not properly applied in the way they were
developed, many conventional Indian farmers
misuse concentrated chemicals in ways such as
not wearing protective clothing or equipment,
re-using pesticide containers as kitchen
containers, and using more pesticide and
fertilizer than necessary to maximize yield. In
2008, approximately 85% of produce recalls in
wholesale markets due to contamination and
disease originated from organic farms, while
only 20% of contamination occurred after arrival
at market.[50]
The introduction of high-yielding varieties of
seeds after 1965 and the increased use of
fertilizers and irrigation are known collectively
as the Green Revolution, which provided the
increase in production needed to make India
self-sufficient in food grains, thus improving
agriculture in India. Famine in India, once
accepted as inevitable, has not returned since the
introduction of Green Revolution crops. This
movement is now under fire, and is blamed for
the spread of Land Degradation in India due to
excessive use of Fertilizers, Pesticides, Etc.
[citation needed
 Scientist and Nobel Peace Prize
winner Norman Borlaug, who developed a type
of wheat that saved one billion people from
starvation, has died.
He was known as the father of the 'green
revolution,' which transformed agriculture
through high-yield crop varieties and other
innovations, helping to more than double world
food production between 1960 and 1990.