Environmental Study of the Green Revolution
Environmental Study of the Green Revolution
With the rapid growth of our global population pouring into the next millennium, we will witness an ever-growing hunger rate around the world. The Green Revolution which already sprouted in the early part of the century, only needs to add a bit more momentum and we will see a bright future for the human race, a future without hunger and starvation- hopefully. Citizens believe that the miracle seeds of the Green Revolution will enhance grain yields and therefore are a key to ending world hunger. Higher yields mean more income for unfortunate farmers, helping them to get out of poverty and more food means less hunger. Although the new seeds helped tens of millions of extra tons of grain a year harvest, the Green Revolution has not actually proven to be a successful strategy for ending the world’s food supply issue. With these fertilizers our world economy and small farmers do much better and they provide us with good nutrition, although they do cause sicknesses and diseases. Our own health is also being threatened by the use of chemicals and pesticides. Genetically engineered food is not the answer to the world’s food supply problem and it will not end world hunger.
The Green Revolution of the 60’s and 70’s goal was to increase the number of crop production so that more food would be supplied for hungry people of the developed Countries. A majority of the food produced was exported as cash crops, so that local diet did not always improve. In terms of production, the green revolution was initially successful in South East Asia. India doubled its wheat yield in fifteen years and the rice yield in the Philippines rose by 75%. This issue tended to benefit primarily those landowners who could afford the investment necessary for such intensive agriculture. With out a dosage of 70- 0 kg/ 154- 198 lb of expensive nitrogen fertilizers per hectare, the high yields will not grow properly. Hence, rich farmers tended to obtain bigger yields while small holders were unable to benefit from the new methods. The World Watch Institute argues that if one tried to calculate the “hidden costs” associated with intensive agriculture, they would sum to numbers like $112 per hectare in the United States, $337 per hectare in the United Kingdom, and $274 per...