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TechnoratiNorman Borlaug's Unsustainable Green Revolution
Last month, the world lost a Nobel laureate. In the many tributes following his death, Norman Borlaug was credited with saving more lives than any man in history. Borlaug’s legacy was the Green Revolution – bringing industrial agriculture to Mexico, India, and Pakistan. Pesticides, ammonia fertilizer, irrigation, and hybrid seeds resulted in a predictable outcome: lush green fields full of high-yielding crops. At last, mankind had the tools at its fingertips to overcome hunger.
And yet, hunger has not been banished from the developing world, or even the developed world. Four decades after the Green Revolution the world produces enough food to feed everybody, and yet an estimated billion people are hungry. In his last year, Borlaug joined policy makers in calling for a “Second Green Revolution.” While a global effort to stamp out hunger is needed, a repeat of the first Green Revolution is a bad idea.
The unsustainable technologies that produced the first Green Revolution are just that – unsustainable. These technologies work for a period of time, until the soil and water are depleted. In India, the Green Revolution was an initial success. Today, farmers are struggling because the inputs for their crops (seeds, fertilizer, pesticides) are so expensive. Many are running out of water, or spending more money to drill for water. One bad harvest is enough to leave them unable to plant the next year’s crops, and without access to affordable credit, they borrow from exploitive local moneylenders. This cycle of debt is the cause of a decade-long epidemic of farmer suicides in India. The same technologies that once gave them bountiful harvests are now literally killing them.
The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a report sponsored by the World Bank and the UN, found that the best hope for developing nations lies in agroecological farming methods. While those calling for a Second Green Revolution champion genetically modified seeds, the IAASTD report found them incompatible with the needs of developing world farmers.
Currently available GMO technology is best suited to large scale monoculture and the seeds do not reliably make good on the promises biotech companies make about them – promises like decreased pesticide use or increased yield. Furthermore, the private companies seek to maximize profits on their seeds, and developing nations often lack the intellectual property laws and enforcement to protect their investments. Biotech companies promise GM seeds with drought resistance, but so far they have failed to deliver. IAASTD lead author Jack Heinemann summarizes, “stress tolerance involves the interaction of many different genes working in a complex, environmentally-responsive network… genetic engineering is unlikely to produce reliable drought tolerance in most crops grown in actual field conditions because it is unable to mix and match so many genes at once.”
Rather, the IAASTD report encourages solutions that provide small-scale subsistence farmers with access to technology, knowledge, and credit. The report’s call for spreading technology in the developing world refers to agroecological methods of farming that preserve biodiversity and do not deplete the soil or pollute the air and water. In studies, these methods exceed the potential of GM seeds alone to produce high yields or resist drought.
Advocates of genetically modified seeds dismiss sustainable agriculture as technologically backward, but actually the opposite is true. Although sustainable agriculture uses many time-tested growing methods, we now understand why they work because of modern science. Our ancestors lacked the science to understand why crop rotation, composting, and cover crops worked so well, but today we do. With the latest science and technology, we can improve upon the farming methods used by generations before us, without abandoning those methods entirely.
Borlaug gave the developing world the latest science of his time. We should honor his memory and his legacy by following through with his goal of solving hunger by giving the developing world the tools to grow their own food, but we need not use his outdated Green Revolution technologies to do it. Rather, we will honor him far more by using agroecological methods and accompanying them with economic and social reforms needed to bring his dream to fruition.
Jill Richardson writes on sustainable food and agriculture policy. Food became an interest of hers after working in health care for several years and realizing that it makes no sense to try and fix our health care system if we are actively making ourselves sick with our food. She's the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix it and she blogs on La Vida Locavore. Jill lives in San Diego with her three cats.
13 Comments so far
Show AllIt's interesting to see the battles here between CD'ers over which POV is sham and motivated by profit.
When determining which idea is motivated by profit, one need only look at which demands that consumers - some consumers - use more product.
In this case, so-called "green revolution" products, GM products, pesticides, synthesized chemical fertilizer and so forth are centralized and therefore capital-motivating technologies. Organic and subsistence things are clearly less motivating to business.
Deciding what's correct may be more complicated, at times, but this seems like a fairly reliable rule of thumb.
"the private companies seek to maximize profits on their seeds, and developing nations often lack the intellectual property laws and enforcement to protect their investments"
The author offers this as an argument against the use of proprietary seed in developing nations. But the argument temps one to conclude that developing countries should strengthen intellectual property law enforcement.
The truth is they are much better off leaving those laws unenforced, because intellectual property is not a benefit, but a net liability to the people. Besides, the investments in intellectual property are not real investments so they don't need protecting. They are funny munny investments, i.e. fabricated out of thin air by bankers who favor the parasitic economy over the real economy.
The bankers don't charge much interest on those loans because the ethics and culture in that category of borrowers are mutually compatible with those of the bankers. They scratch each other's backs in a synergy of evil against the people.
The people are better off without elite interference in the real economy, given the elite agenda to illegally corner and control world markets. Keep the exchange loops local and keep the elites out.
Population-support technology can never be more than a stopgap.
As long as we allow our population to grow unchecked in the name of some soft-headed notion of "reproductive freedom", we will inevitably come up against the reality of limited resources. The penalty for that is *premature death*.
The most pop-support technology like Borlaug's can do is give us breathing space while we use political and scientific measures to bring our population down to the carrying capacity of the planet. That's the *MOST* it can do.
As usual, the politicians refuse to deal with reality, and billions will suffer and die too young because of their criminal failure.
I find the Monsanto Criminals disgusting.
I find the capitalist belly-robbers disgusting
I find the regressionists disgusting.
What we need is a smart combination of genetically enhanced food and old, sustainable (and new sustainable) farming methods. One of the greatest fallacies thoughout the enviromental movement, (not as great as the "tech shall save us! All hail tech!!" fallacy) is that simply using older or less technology will save us. We need crop rotation, we need cover crops. If we develop plenty of green power we can use nitrogen fertilizers to great benefit, and the application of genetic modification to diverse crops. I suspect that if somebody cared we could develop methods to artificially improve poor soil, maybe even rapidly add organic matter to desert areas.
Also, the population issue. THe only reason a malthusian catastrphe has not occured is because of technology still working. Consuming resources, but working. We need a major reduction of population to make this work.
GMO food is a catastrophe waiting to happen.
If you don't know that, that means you have done no reading on the subject.
Older or less tech is the only path open to us. Due to a little physical phenomenon known as peak resources, we simply CANNOT invent our way out of the problem we find ourselves in.
We have become a society of over-specialists. The vast majority of human society are specialist devoted to a single occupation, with little or no idea of the intricate web of other specialists who make their life possible.
I suggest you do a little reading, and discover just how perilous a set-up we have.
It would take a relatively small event to bring the whole house of cards crashing down.
Bio-diverse farming practices will always stand up to the test of time and the trial of natural selection, which the sterile and artificially modified lab varieties of GMO seed and their use, dismally lack thereof and woefully ignore. The deficiency of ecologic robustness, expressed in the field by these crops, can only add to the growing list of risk involved with GMO seed, its use within an industrial farm setting, as well as the underlying market philosophy driving its acceptance. With new methods and technology available to us today, we can continue to improve upon the huge legacy our forefathers have handed down to us, but without the necessity of going so far as to directly challenge nature in a game that is ineluctably stacked against us.
lebeau, I didn't read the author's piece as advocating for GM foods; in fact, I think she is saying the opposite - that GM food is not the answer. Clearly, though, she could have addressed the evils of GM foods, as you have done. Anyway, thanks for the heads up on Engdahl's book. I will definitely get myself a copy.
this author is so full of shit that if i truly expressed myself i would be banned from the site for bad manners
she is a liar and/or a fool or both
gmo's are shit food - they do not increase productivity - that is just a flat out lie - they are poisonous to our health - leading to all kinds of cancers, intestinal diseases, growth stunts and birth defects - just to name a few issues
gmo's, the wto, imf and world bank are all just corporate arms of the rockefeller family's plan for world domination
the rockefellers have financed gmo production and their subsequent pesticides (another cash cow) and as of a few years ago they control food lock stock and barrell
this bullshit offered by this author about increased production is rockefeller propaganda not born out by the facts
what we used to call a lie
read this book "seeds of destruction" by f william engdahl to learn the truth:
http://globalresearch.ca/books/SoD.html
the whole psyop is laid out - this book is so important that not reading it is an act of treason against humanity
here's a brief synopsis:
This skillfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. "Control the food and you control the people."
This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.
The author cogently reveals a diabolical World of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.
Engdahl's carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all those committed to the causes of social justice and World peace.
Who are you, what planet are you from, and what do you want?
Are you put off by the author's bit of courtesy towards Norman Borlaug at the end of her piece? Otherwise, she is far more convincing than you are; she clearly points out that GMO's are not at all what is claimed about them, and points out how the green revolution went terribly wrong. Probably most of us reading this article have a certain amount of awarenss of this old story, and it's parallels in the history of the world. Your shrieking helps no one. Your synopsis of Engdahl's book sounds like Dante's Inferno. In these corridors of power, people go to work everyday and "take care of business"; you make them sound like they are sitting around saying: "Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha" as giant testubes full of green slime bubble in the background and an evil organ is playing. The real Horror takes place where the politics and big business that you speak of prevents the distribution of food, with the resulting slow deaths from complications of malnutrition and hunger. The author of this article is pointing out the importance of an agroecological systems approach to sustainable locally controlled food production. If you want to fight the powers that be, learn about the genuinely successful alternative production methods that are slowly taking hold all over the developing world. These growers are struggling to keep their local politicians from making sweetheart handshake deals with international agribusinesses which secure monopolies of seed and supplies.
Vandana Shiva is an inspiring leader of this cause, especially in India, but she is internationally known for the movement that she works with. Read about her on the internet.
And please try to read this article again. Perhaps you have misunderstood it?
-Andy
Anyone else hear the deathknell of Monsanto and industrial farming (along with millions of human beings)?
Welcome to the downslope of 'Hubbart's Peak' (look it up).
Actually I do. And if the Luddites among the Enviornmentalist's don't get a brain soon, there will be more than millions dying.
What a pathetically ignorant statement.
So, what do you propose to replace the soon to be non-existent petrochemical based pesticides and fertilizers with, hmm, bright boy?
More techno-fetishist wet dream turd in a can? More whispering into the wind for a techno fix based on the same ideas that put us into this mess?
So-called 'Luddite' farming techniques are based on thousands of years of direct get-your-hands-dirty experience, that managed to feed large populations before the advent of the disastrous 'Green Revolution'.
Why do you think there has been such renewed interest in 'hobby' farming and kitchen gardens?
The 100 mile diet isn't just a good idea, it's the only way we are going to survive.