Critical Analysis of The Green Revolution

As an arts student, I have been able to have and appreciate the opportunity of joining in on sociology courses. Reflecting back over these past 12 weeks, I had the moments of engaging in challenging yet cognitive global topics. By cognitive, I would like to mean the topics that required thinking, understanding and making myself aware. Now, I can say that I have gained the knowledge of identifying potential root causes of local as well as global problems and also, knowledge of how they affect our cultural, economic and political patterns. I would not really have had a clue on the global issues and theories if someone would have asked me a question on it in the beginning. Now, I believe that I have the knowledge to provide someone with satisfactory explanation. Of all the topics read in this course, although the options are endless, I would like to reflect upon our society’s Green Revolution mindset. This reflection paper will also aim at the analysis of how our agricultural practises led to Green Revolution and its economic impacts and changes. I will discuss how and why I think it has failed to work in some countries.

It is no doubt that Industrial Revolution and Capitalism brought in significant changes. It not only brought changes in modes of production but also in our consumption practices. As stated in the chapter 1 of the book, Samuel Strauss, a journalist and philosopher, coined the term “consumptionism” to characterize a new way of life back in 1920s. According to him, the capitalist change in the lives of people created a philosophy of life where societies began to emphasize on more and more production and accumulation. “Countries became and still are committed to perpetual economic growth, regardless of moral or intellectual growth”, as Strauss says. Since this change has become prominent, the goal has been to produce more and more commodities. Industrial Revolution has made people work on wages, salaries, etc. and has resulted in an economy where everything comes with a price-tag. Almost everything has been turned into a ‘commodity’.

It dates back to the Major Transition in America when the rate and level of commodity consumption increased between 1880 and 1930. It was when food became a commodity and its production increased by 40% from 1899 to 1905 besides clothing, jewellery, furniture, etc. Hence, the goal was to further increase its production. Earlier, people used to grow and produce the food using tools and animals (such as axe, ox, etc.). Then came irrigation with modern technology that required minimal human labour and energy and replaced declining food producers since people had begun moving to towns, cities, suburbs and living on wages. They had left their lands and depended on wages for food. To meet the requirements for food by the growing population and by people who did not produce food, the focus was on maximum production. Farmers began to use more and more technology. Use of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides increased. It was between 1940 and 1950, Norman Borlaug, an American scientist, sponsored by Rockefeller Foundation, began his research in Mexico. He developed new high-yield hybrid strains of corn and wheat that were disease resistant as well and suitable for Mexican agriculture. His technique soon began to be adopted by other Third World countries. However, it was most successful in India at the time when it was recovering from Bengal famine. Green Revolution resulted in around 130 million tons of grain output by the end of 1979, as stated in the Journal of Food Ethics. There is no doubt that Green Revolution brought some advantages with it. But considering the example of India, I would not agree with Green Revolution mindset. India after adapting HYV-seeds did not have worry about food import anymore, obviously! All-in-all, it provided people great way to prevent food scarcity.

Although farmers in India were able to produce tons of more food-grain as compared to earlier, it did affect people and environment in many ways. The new practices demanded increased use of pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers for higher amounts of yield which resulted in increased economy of petrochemicals production plants since they produced more pesticides, fertilizers as well as oils prices became higher due to increased use of machinery. This in turn, affected poor people. I have realised that it was all capitalist politics and behind the encouragement of GR mindset. It provided a great chance for capitalist and producers to fill their banks accounts. It was also a chance for banks to take part by providing loans and such. It, in turn, encouraged capitalist agriculture. As I have seen growing up in India, farmers with more land and money recruit poor people form rural areas in need to do the work in fields and that is when the exploitation begins. Landowners would not treat their labourers well enough and would not even pay them their complete labour. So, I would say that these practices remain available to the rich as a result of which the social and economic gap between societies widened.

Now, if I focus on Green Revolution in India, we can notice how it affected people with its real-life practices. It is clear that the crop that yielded highest was wheat. HYV-seeds can produce large quantities of wheat, rice, etc. but it has left other crops such as sugarcane, tea, cotton unnoticed- not only by GR techniques but also by farmers since it does not bring them higher yields as compared to wheat, etc. This would clearly result in shortages of other crops as it has and hence, has reduced the overall rate of growth of production. I am only able to see its side which has made poor people suffer even more. When we go and talk to local people in India, we can see that there is still social and economic disparities that media or Green Revolutionists do not pat attention to. As I have mentioned before, capitalist farmers, who only care about their surplus, do little to none for the landless. Here, I am not saying that it is their responsibility. It is, in a way, but what I am trying to emphasize on is that Green Revolution system has messed up with people’s minds. It has given them a way to produce more but has failed them to fairly use the techniques and educate them. Green Revolution is not a poor people’s cup of coffee. Only those who have access to land and money have high-yielding varieties. HYV-seeds require more than normal use of fertilizers, insecticides, etc. which only people with ‘capital’ have access to. On the contrary, small farmers are left not financially starving but also, hopeless with their agriculture. G.S. Bhalla and G.K. Chadha have found that GR has only been beneficial to rich who have 2.5 to 5 or more acres of land but one-third of the farmers are still deprived. In short, following the culture of capitalism, GR is not failing to make rich farmers, in this case, richer and poor farmers, poorer.

I agree that Green Revolution has brought modernization in use of technology and machines in agriculture. But what is the use of this when it creates more conflicts, differences and barriers between people. As the use of machines has increased, people who would live on their labour in agriculture have nowhere to go. In states like Punjab or Haryana in India, people would come from other states like Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh to provide their labour to farmers but it has now been replaced with machines. Agriculture plays an important role in 58% of the rural household economy, as I have read from an article by Ann Raeboline and her associates in the Journal of Ethics. Now I will reflect upon how Green Revolution results in the loss of native crops due to emphasis on HYC-varieties and how it results in environmental impacts as well. There has been increased shortages in varieties of native crops have been since the HYV seeds have evolved. Native crops include Dular, Urad, etc in India, tuh, shorba in Ethopia, Fajitas, squash in America. These indigineous crops have both environmental and health benefits. These varieties adapt themselves in such a way that they can withstand harsh climatic conditions, rugged topography, rest floods, rain, drought, etc. They are also proven to be containing little to no health risks such as diabetes, cholesterol and other diseases (such as Maapillai Samba in India, is supposed to increase fertility). Native crops are also helpful in enhancing agricultural diversity and sutainability in one’s country. Hybrid varieties on the other not only to economic crisis but also environmental degradation. Green Revolution techniques were adapted in India to increase food production but there are still around 196 million people who are either suffering from hunger or are undernourished. According to Food and Agriculture Organization in United Nations, 58.4% of children under the 5 years of age are anemic and 53% of women between 14 and 49 years are anemic. Men comprise 22.7%.

As the production of wheat, maize, barley has increased, production of crops which were common in average households have gone down. The government policies have not done any efficient change to improve the conditions or educate people and raise awareness. Also, besides leaving people in hunger and poverty, it has resulted in continuous environmental degradation and failure of crops – the same HYV crops were higher in yield. The lack of knowledge of proper management of land, overuse of chemicals and monoculture has left cast areas of land infertile and barren. It has also resulted in loss of underground water besides its contamination. Fertilizers have resulted in disease widespread. This in turn, has increased expenses to maintain living as well as agriculture. It has also led to loss of natural ingredients of soil. Hence, farmers are left with no choice, other than adapting new techniques. On the other hand, the rate of suicide rate has increased among small farmers due to lack of opportunities and unaffordability. To be clear, I am not trying to say that we should go back to old-school and conservative ways; neither am I against technological developments. I would rather say that I have tried my best to explain that Green Revolution is not succeeding in meeting everyone’s needs and along with governmental policies needs, there are certainly some measures to be taken to improve it. As for now, Green Revolution only looks good to me in books – maybe not even that – since it leads nowhere.