Green Revolution Pros And Cons

The Green Revolution a period of time that genetically modified crops were engineered, pesticides and fertilizer were created starting in the 1940s ending in the 1960s. This period caused a lot of debate on the Green Revolution some stating it positively affected the world and some stating that it negatively affected the world. The positives of the Green Revolution include increasing yields, increasing profit for farmers, lowering prices for foods which then allows the poor afford the food, and crops can be genetically modified to contain specific vitamin. The Green revolution is negative because it caused an increase in global pollution, chemical pollution, and health risks due to the exposure to the chemical produced during the Green Revolution.

There were many major issues around the world that brought around the start of the Green Revolution. One major cause was the inadequate amount of food in relation to the population. In Doc. 1, a graph is provided that compares the wheat yielded in Mexico and India from 1950-2010. From 1950-1970, the graph shows that Mexico’s crops yielded low amounts of wheat. For India, the graph shows that the crops yielded low amounts of wheat from 1965-1985 which was after the Green Revolution began. The purpose of this graph was to provide the statistics on wheat yielded and how it changed over the decades. The intended audience of this graph was the scientists who wanted to see the progression before and after the revolution. This graph is significant to the topic because it shows that the low amount of wheat yielded

The Green Revolution had a positive, negative, or possibly both consequences on the way human beings have evolutionized through out the years. Each of these documents specifically proves that whether good or bad the different societies have been able to incorporate a little from what the Green Revolution has left them into their daily lives. The Green Revolution on one-side has ignited the revolution for new ideas and traditions. On the other side the Green Revolution has become a form of destructing the true and only roots for most farmers.

Over the next forty years, global population is expected to reach nine billion people. This increase in population, combined with expected economic growth, will cause an increase in food demanded and inevitably drain the resources we use for food production. So far, agriculture has been able to respond positively to the rising demand for crop and livestock products. However, farmers are already faced with many new challenges associated with feeding an expanding global population. Farmers must now meet strict new emissions requirements and produce more food on fewer acres while minimizing their environmental footprint. The demand for food is expected to grow substantially in the next couple decades. Some of the factors affecting an increase in food demands are population growth, rising incomes of individuals, food supply factors, and biofuels.

Since the beginning of the Human Race, gathering a sufficient amount of food has always proved to be a challenge. The Green Revolution attempted to solve this problem by creating and applying new techniques and technologies. The Green Revolution was created out of necessity and caused social changes, discontent with some of the effects, and the overall quality of living to be improved but the improvement of living quality had the greatest effect because this led to higher overall populations which in turn created the need to feed an even greater population.

First of all why is going green important? Nonetheless, the real question is why isn’t it important?

The United States is one of the countries expected to grow at the highest rate (Kochhar). One might think that a simple fix to feeding a growing population would be to produce more food. The answer is not that easy as farm land is rapidly being taken up by urbanization to house people in this population expansion. It is estimated that about 3,000 acres of farmland are lost to development every day in this country (US). This decrease in available farm land has shown a major challenge for famers as they try and feed the world. Therefore, farmers have turned towards new means of production.

Bill Nye stated, “Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.” Humans are not only causing the climate change that Nye mentioned, but are also destroying the environment by wasting resources. The world has a serious problem that, if not dealt with right away, will lead to environmental catastrophe. However some people may ignore this warning from Nye and use the argument that the United States doesn’t need to worry about the environment because more pressing matters exist. In today’s world everyone uses energy and resources to meet their daily needs, but some of it is wasted unintentionally. The American government and its citizens have the responsibility to reduce this waste.

One of the widely discussed issues, nowadays, we must tackle sooner rather than later is scarcity of food on our planet. Today our population growth is rising , and as Jonathan Foley says “ In 2050 there will be nine billion people in Earth “. Our planet does not have sufficient amount of food to feed whole world’s population. It is obvious that, the planet has a problem with the food supply to 2050 and to rectify this problem we need to stop expanding land, increase crops on land that we already have, use water efficiently, use less animal products, and to save food- as Jonathan Foley suggests in “ Feeding Nine Billion “. I feel fearful, but I do not want to change my habits.

Many people have heard or seen the commercials about how a farmer feeds 155 people in today’s world vs 28 people in years past (http://www.sdcorn.org). Farmers need to produce more food in the next 40 years than in the previous 10,000 years combined. According to the United Nations, 1 billion people across the globe suffer from chronic hunger today. This number is expected to dramatically increase as the world’s population grows to a projected 9 billion by 2050, requiring a 70 percent increase in the amount of food the world’s farmers produce annually (). The problem the world faces is how to feed the ever-growing population off of diminishing acres of farm land. It is urgent that the world comes together to form a plan to control the amount of land consumed by urban sprawl.

The world population is growing faster than ever thanks in part to improved food growth. Large production farms ensure that food is inexpensive and accessible to millions of people.

It was recorded in the year 2011 that the worlds population reached approximately 7 Billion. However, when studying the current birth rate, experts have predicted that by the year 2050 the worlds population will reach more than 9 billion. Leaving agriculturalist and scientist concern on how to help feed the over 9 billion that would soon populate the earth. This leaves many factors to blame for the contribution to population growth. The first factor would have to be the life expectancy rate of humans nowadays. Medical advantages and technology have made it possible for humans to live a longer life. The next factor, and most important is agriculture. In order to thrive in future generations, we must find a way to provide food to consumers without harming their health or the environment. That is why within the next 34 years we must produce twice as much food that we currently receiving in order to provide for our populations growth.

Although, many people will argue that the Green Revolution wasn’t a success in the developing countries and negatively affected the economic status and environmental safety of the country. Many people say that the green revolution only benefited the rich people, who are in charge, by getting them richer and the poor laborers only getting poorer. They also bring up that the run-off from the pesticides used to artificially make the crops went into the rivers and polluted the clean drinking water for the lower-class people leading to many new diseases spreading. However, science advancements in the field of agriculture and the overall economic growth of the whole country helped the Green Revolution be a success.

In this essay, initially, we have a quick look on nature and evolution of green revolution. Secondly, pros and cons of this phenomenon would be discussed and then more holistic solutions for improving this process would be introduced as a real green revolution. Finally, whole materials would be concluded.

Prior to 1965, agricultural systems depended mostly on the cycling of internal resources, in-situ biological control mechanisms and natural rainfall patterns (Evenson and Gollin, 2003). Food-crop productivity was modestly stable until the introduction of the Green Revolution (GR) where extensive agricultural research has led to the development of heavy machineries, advanced irrigation systems and biologically engineered seeds that can operate in conjunction with synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides (Pingali, 2012). During the GR period, the world population more than doubled at a growth rate of over 2% annually and