Green revolution is the introduction of industrialized agriculture to the developing world in the mid- and late- 20th century and it allowed the production of greater quantity and quality of food. This industrialization became necessary because people realized that farmers could not keep cultivating more land to increase crop output, than, agricultural scientists devised methods and technologies to increase crop output per unit area of existing cultivated land.

This new agriculture uses synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides; special types of grains that are more resistant to wind and diseases and produces high yields -transgenics; and heavy equipment powered by fossil fuels.

These developments had mixed effects on the environment. The use of already-cultivated land reduced pressure to convert additional natural land for new cultivation. As a matter of fact, between 1961 and 2003, food production rose 150%, population rose 100%, and the area converted for agriculture increased only 10%. Therefore, the green revolution prevented some degree of deforestation and habitat conversion when many countries were experiencing their fastest population growth rates.

However, there also are many negative sides that we must pay attention to:

  • The intensive application of water, fossil fuel, innorganic fertilizers, and synthetic pesticides worsened pollution, and soil problems like erosion, salinization, and desertification;
  • As monocultures made planting and harvesting more efficient, the increased output reduced biodiversity, because many fewer wild organisms are able to live in monocultures than in native habitats or amid tratitional small-scale polycultures;

  • When all plants in a field are genetically similar as in monoculture, all are equally susceptible to viral diseases, fungal pathogens, or insect pests that can spread quickly from plant to plant. Therefore monocultures bring some risks of cataqstrophic failure;
  • Many yields are declining in some regions because of the decline in soil quality from the heavy use of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation.

Green revolution and population

It is really important to understand the reason why the green revolution happened.

The transfer of technology to the developing world that marked the green revolution began in the 1940s, when US agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug introduced Mexico’s farmers to a specially bred type of wheat that produced large seed heads, was short in stature to resist wind, was resistant to diseases, and produced high yields. Within two decades of planting and harvesting this specially bred crop, Mexico tripled its wheat production and began exporting wheat. After this huge success, the wheat was taken to India and Pakistan, and soon, many developing countries were doubling, tripling, or quadrupling their crop yields using selectively bred strains of wheat, rice and corn, among others.

In the 1960s, India’s population, for instance, was skyrocketing and it’s traditional agriculture was not producing enough food to support the growth. By adopting green revolution agriculture, India sidestepped mass starvation. In the years since intensifying its agriculture, India has added several hundred million more people and continues to suffer widespread poverty and hunger.

Still, because of the huge problems brought by the green revolution, we can’t think of it as the solution of our food supplies problem. In fact, Borlaug  called his green revolution methods “a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation”.