What is Green Revolution? What are it's positive and negative impact ?
Answers
The Green Revolution is a movement which refers to a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives. This happened between the 1960s and 1980s. In this period agriculture was viewed only as more of a commercial sector than a subsistence one. The term “Green Revolution” was first used in 1968 by former USAID director William Gaud. The inventor of this revolution was the crop pathologist Norman E. Borlaug. The necessity of this revolution was the constant population growth. Population was increasing exponentially so the food production was insufficient.
Positive impacts of Green Revolution
It increased significantly the production, to almost 2.5 times in wheat between 1960 and 2010. GR has been able to save the lives of millions of people and exponentially increase the yield of food crops. It improved the economic lot of farmers, and their standard of living greatly improved. It reduced the import of food grains.
Negative impacts of Green Revolution
The revolution increased the use of fertilizers. Generally speaking a fertilizer has the chance to soak into the soil and spread to other areas if it rains. It diminishes soil quality due to increased reliance on synthetic fertilizers rather than natural fertilizer, which allow replenishing of nutrients. The increase in mono cropping has decreased soil quality. Nutrients could not be replaced in the soil due to mono cropping. The use of heavy machine causes soil compaction. The pesticides travel through the food chain and are accumulated in higher organisms. Some of them persist in soil, air surface water and ground water and continue to poison them for a long time. The long term exposure to pesticide causes cancer. The environmental degradation makes the GR an overall inefficient, short-term solution to the problem of food insecurity. It decreases the “biodiversity” of crops in the world today. Before the revolution, there were 30,000 different variants of rice. Today there are used only ten modified rice variants. As a result, if climate change, disease, or a rise in pestilence attacked the crops, the system would be weakened. With lower food grain prices in effect farmers have become indebted and are now being found to commit suicide because of it.
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