The Green Revolution is the
“highly productive agricultural techniques developed since the 1960s that
entail the use of new hybrid plant varieties combined with large applications
of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The term (Source 1) is generally applied to agriculture
changes in developing countries. There are both positive and
negative side effects from participating in the Green Revolution. One of the positive
aspect of the Green Revolution is that crops tend to double in size. For
example, “India more than doubled its annual grain production between 1970 and
the mid-1990s” (Source 1). The Green Revolution was a major agricultural success;
however, there were many negative side effects from using chemical fertilizers.
One of the negative results was the environmental problems. Since the farmers
used a chemical altered fertilizer, they had to continue to use the same type
of fertilizer and the crops required a special type of pesticides. This causes
a problem because both the chemical fertilizer and pesticides are very expense.
Another negative aspect that came from the Green Revolution was the social problem.
Only the wealthy farmers could afford all of the equipment required to do the
job successfully. The equipment includes (Source 1), “new seed strains, irrigation
equipment, farm machinery, fertilizers, and pesticides”. All of the
farmers who tried to use the Green Revolution concepts and could not afford the
new seeds the next year, usually ended up selling their farm and having to move
into the city.
Figure 1- The Green Revolution effect on the world.
Australia participated in
the first Green Revolution. Now, they are bracing themselves for another type
of Green Revolution. Due to the sky rocketing prices of cereals and grains, Australian
agriculturist and scientist are coming together to see how they can fix this
problem. Anthony Pratt, a journalist for the Australian (Source 2) , believes that, “helping
to feed a hungry world is Australia’s greatest humanitarian responsibility and
its greatest business opportunity in the 21st century”.
Australia is also planning to do this in an environmentally friendly way. According
to Southeast Farm Press (Source 3) the goal of this next Green Revolution is, “…to secure production
of Australian agriculture and forestry production by 50 percent, while reducing
net carbon emissions per unit of food and fiber by at least 50 percent between
now and 2030” .
Figure 2: Australia is taking better measures toward the environment.
By: Christie Johnson and Gabrielle Ramsay
Works Cited:
(Source 1) Globalization and Diversity text by Rowntree
(Figure 1) mogreen blogspot.com
(Figure 1) mogreen blogspot.com
(Source 2) theaustralian.com.au
(Source 3) southeastfarmpress.com/australia-bracing-next-green-revolution
(Figure 2)
