UNIT 5 TOPIC 5

The Green Revolution

ENDURING UNDERSTANDING : Spatial Patterns and Societal Changes
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the consequences of the Green Revolution on food supply and the environment
in the developing world.

GREEN REVOLUTION DEFINED

First, let me tell you what we’re talking about when we talk about the Green Revolution . It refers to a
movement in the 1960s- 70s in which scientists developed new strains of high-yielding grain crops
through the process of crossbreeding. And by crossbreeding , I mean they mixed different species
of plants or animals in order to produce a hybrid version which had the best genetic characteristics of both.
Stop right there and listen carefully, because there’s something here that students often get wrong on their
exams.

The Green Revolution was definitely characterized by the application of science to agriculture, and
crossbreeding was a kind of genetic modification to seeds and animals. But students often assume that
means that Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs were a product of the Green Revolution, but that’s
a big falsehood. GMOs were a development that occurred later in the 90s and early 2000s , and we’ll talk
about them later, but for now, don’t get that confused . Now let’s get to the point: these new hybrid
seeds yielded far more crops than regular seeds and that led to an incredible increase in agricultural
productivity.

The next thing you need to know about the Green Revolution is the manner in which it diffused . For
the most part, the scientific efforts that yielded these developments occurred in the United States and
then diffused hierarchically to periphery and semi-periphery countries like India, Mexico , and
Indonesia. Each of these places were largely characterized by subsistence agriculture, had a ton of mouths
to feed, and therefore struggled to feed them all. And as it turns out, these new Green Revolution
technologies solved a lot of those problems.

Finally, it’ll be important for you to know that along with these new developments came the necessity
to use more chemicals and that led to the further increasing mechanization of agriculture, and let’s

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The Green Revolution

GREEN REVOLUTION DEFINED cont’d.

consider both. In terms of chemicals, in order to achieve such high yields for the crops, huge amounts of
synthetic fertilizers were required. Whereas your average, garden-variety animal manure worked
to fertilize crops for millenia , the Green Revolution tossed that out and developed chemical fertilizers.
Additionally, because these new engineered crops were more vulnerable to destruction by pests, large
amounts of chemical pesticides were necessary as well. To realize such high yielding crops in
these places, increasing mechanization was required. So in places where human labor was mainly
used for planting and harvesting, machinery like tractors , tillers, and grain carts were introduced in order
to increase the efficiency of farming practices .

SUMMARIZE the previous section in your own words. (2-4 sentences)

The green movement was a movement in the 1960s-70s where scientist discovered new strains of high
yielding crops.

POSITIVE EFFECTS

We ought to talk about the effects of the Green Revolution, because there were some effects, baby, and let’s
start with the positives .

The first positive effect in places that adopted Green Revolution technology was higher crop
yields. Because more food could be produced on the same amount of land, populations in the
developing world were able to feed their people, and even have excess to sell on the world market.
So, yet again, Thomas Malthus and his great predictions of worldwide doom were thwarted by the human
ability to innovate with respect to food.

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The Green Revolution

POSITIVE EFFECTS cont’d

The second positive effect was lower food prices . For almost 50 years, the prices of these high yielding
crops fell consistently , making them more available to people who could not afford it otherwise.
And what that means is that the Green Revolution created a substantial solution to world hunger .

And the third positive effect included a more efficient use of agricultural land . Our fair earth
isn’t exactly coughing up any more land on which we can grow food. And so the application of Green
Revolution technologies meant that farmers could get far more food out of the same plot of land
than had ever been possible.

SUMMARIZE the previous section in your own words. (2-4 sentences)

The first positive effect was higher crop yields. The second positive effect was lower crop prices. The third
positive effect was the efficient use of land.

NEGATIVE EFFECTS

So all of that sounds really great, but you didn’t think there weren’t any negative consequences of the
Green Revolution, did you? No, there are all kinds of downsides to this development, but I’ll constrain
myself to three.

First, the Green Revolution had negative consequences on the environment . As it turns out, one
of the main reasons so much extra food could be produced is because farmers were encouraged to
double-crop , or plant more than one crop in the same soil per year. And you might say, so
what? Well, nutrients in the soil are not an inexhaustible resource . And that kind of intensive

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The Green Revolution

NEGATIVE EFFECTS cont’d

use of the soil often led to soil exhaustion and erosion which would make the soil useless
or at least diminished for the next year’s planting. Additionally, critics also noted that
with the increased use of chemicals for these new crops, agricultural runoff could lead to significant
pollution of freshwater sources. The thought of slaking my thirst with a tall glass of water laced with
nitrogen and phosphates isn’t a good time.

The second negative consequence was the exclusion of women . In the various developing
societies that participated in the Green Revolution, many of them held more traditional
gender roles. And even though women performed a great deal of the agricultural labor in
those places, it was the men who were trained and given decision making power over this new method
of farming which marginalized women’s roles even more.

And the third negative consequence has to do with the economics of the Green Revolution. Because
these new seeds were owned and sold by large agribusiness corporations , farmers in the
developing world lost a great deal of their independence . They now had to purchase new seeds from
these corporations year after year. But haven’t farmers always just used seeds from the previous
year’s harvest to plant again the next year? Well, yes, but these agribusiness executives
got creative in order to turn a profit on these new technologies. You see, these new hybrid seeds
were engineered to yield large amounts of food the first year, but less the next year. So new
seeds were required each year and that led to an increasing dependence of farmers on
these corporations, an increasing number of whom could not afford those seeds or any of the other
technology required for that matter. Additionally, each corporation developed its own pesticides
and fertilizers that only worked with their own seeds, which further bound the farmer to that
corporation. And though the Green Revolution was successful in some places, in others, farmers were
not able to afford the on-going costs and thus could not participate in the benefits of the
Green Revolution.

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The Green Revolution

NEGATIVE EFFECTS cont’d.

I would suggest you add as a negative the fact that many poor farmers who could not afford the seeds,
the technology such as irrigation pumps to get all the water that was needed, reapers, etc. were
bound to move to cities which led to overpopulation issues such as successful of available jobs, housing,
etc. Also, the Green Revolution led to a change for many costs farmers of becoming part of a global food
chain and benefits their traditional role of subsistence farming.

SUMMARIZE the previous section in your own words. (2-4 sentences)

The first negative effect was the effect on the environment. Due to an excess of chemicals used the soil
became non fertile. The second effect was the exclusion of women. The men were trained in the new
agricultural methods leaving the women to traditional gender roles. The third negative effect was on the
economy. The new high yield seeds were owned by the large agribusinesses. This made it so that the farmers
had to buy from them to get high yields.

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 UNIT 5 TOPIC 5

The Green Revolution

RESPOND to the learning objective with an evidence-based, argumentative thesis.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the consequences of the Green Revolution on food supply and the environment
in the developing world.

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