What Is the “Green Revolution”?

JUST a few years ago, starvation was reported to be affecting hundreds of millions of persons in various lands. Every day thousands of deaths were said to be taking place due to food shortages.

This was especially so of India. There, two consecutive years of poor rains, in 1965 and 1966, produced a drought that severely affected crops. Loss of life from hunger was great. Only massive shipments of food from other countries prevented a complete catastrophe.

As a result, dire predictions of world famine came from many sources. Some authorities estimated that the mid-1970’s would certainly see that famine. There were those who even said that the world famine had already begun.

Yet, today there is not as much said about people actually starving to death around the world as there was then. Indeed, we now hear of food ‘surpluses’ in some places where there used to be great shortages only a few years ago.

What is the reason for this? It is because a ‘revolution’ has been taking place in the production of food grains. So highly regarded is this phenomenon that it is given the name “green revolution.”

However, it has also raised questions, such as the following: How did this “green revolution” come about? Are there dangers associated with it? Is it really helping the poor and hungry of the world? Is it the answer to man’s food problems? Let us examine each of these questions.

How It Began

The “green revolution” more specifically has to do with the successful development of very high-yielding types of wheat and rice. It is so important because these two grains, especially rice, are the staple foods for most of earth’s population.

This “green revolution” began about the year 1965. It had its start earlier in a joint program of wheat improvement conducted in Mexico between that country’s Ministry of Agriculture and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The first breakthrough came as the result of efforts by a team of agriculture experts headed by Dr. Norman E. Borlaug. This was after about twenty years of experimenting. They developed varieties of wheat that produced up to four bushels where only one bushel had grown before!

The new wheat was short, and its stalk very stiff. This was important, as it enabled the plant to avoid falling down under the weight of the extra-large heads of grain. Also, it was not sensitive to the length of the daytime period. This meant that it could be planted even in those parts of the earth where the daylight hours differed from where the seed was developed. Also, it had a very high response to fertilization and irrigation.

At about the same time, a new high-yield rice plant was developed in the Philippines. The agency responsible for this was the International Rice Research Institute. This discovery did for rice what the Mexican experiments did for wheat.

In 1965 these new grains were planted on a larger experimental scale in Asia. Several hundred acres were sown. Today, only seven years later, tens of millions of acres are planted in the new varieties in various parts of the earth! This is particularly true of the wheat-growing areas of India and Pakistan. In the Philippines and other Southeast Asia rice-growing areas, plantings of the new rice varieties have also increased rapidly.

How Effective Has It Been?

The production of grain has undergone a marked change because of the new varieties. In several countries there have been large increases in grain production. The magazine BioScience of November 1, 1971, noted particularly India and Pakistan, “where, it is said, they are dispelling the specter of widespread famine or at least postponing it for perhaps a generation.”

Previously, the best harvest for India was during the 1964-65 crop year. Then, about 89 million tons of grain were produced. But for 1970-71 about 107 million tons were reported. The most spectacular increase was registered by the wheat crop. It more than doubled in six years, from about 11 million tons to 23 million tons. Rice production has not expanded as spectacularly. Yet, some Indian officials predicted that 1972 could see “self-sufficiency” in that basic food.

As a result of the large increases in crop yields, some famine-prone areas of the world that formerly had to import huge amounts of grain were reported to have enough now, or were even exporting it. This success with the new grains has induced more and more farmers to plant them each year.

From this, one could conclude that science has at last found the answer to man’s food problems. It would seem that the hungry peoples of the world have only to plant the new varieties of wheat and rice and starvation can be avoided.

A Warning

Yet, many agriculture experts warn against such a conclusion. They say that the “green revolution” is not solving mankind’s hunger problems now, and will not do so in the future!

For instance, in the book The Survival Equation, an article by agricultural economist Wolf Ladejinsky states the following:

“For nearly five years the ‘green revolution’ has been under way in a number of agriculturally underdeveloped countries of Asia. Its advent into tradition-bound rural societies was heralded as the rebuttal to the dire predictions of hunger stalking large parts of the world.

“But more than that, those carried away with euphoria at the impending changes saw in them a remedy for the poverty of the vast majority of the cultivators. . . .

“However, the propitious circumstances in which the new technology thrives are not easily obtainable and hence there are inevitably constraints on its scope and progress. Apart from this, where it has succeeded, the revolution has given rise to a host of political and social problems. In short, the green revolution can be, as Dr. Wharton correctly pointed out in ‘Foreign Affairs’ in April 1969, both a cornucopia and a Pandora’s box.”

Why are many authorities issuing warnings against undue optimism, right in the midst of the “green revolution”? What are some of the problems being encountered? How do they affect the possibility of the “green revolution” being able to overcome hunger and poverty?

One problem holds great potential danger. It has to do with the genetic background of the new grain varieties.

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A new high-yield rice plant developed in the Philippines did for rice what Mexican experiments did for wheat, but is this solving the problem?

Danger: Too Much of One Kind

THE magazine BioScience warned recently: “Another specter, that of a widespread disease epidemic, haunts the ‘green revolution.’” Why is this so?

When large areas of one family of grains are grown, the entire crop is exposed to a serious hazard. Should a new type of insect or plant disease strike, all of the acreage planted in that kind of grain can be affected. But when there is a variety of grain types, that is not usually the case.

Experts agree that this is a distinct possibility with the new, high-yield grains. These new types come from a very narrow genetic base. The Rockefeller Foundation reports that from one particular strain has come the entire family of wheats that today occupies more acreage in Asia than any other type.

Yet, because the new types produce so well, they are given preference. Farmers want to make money. They will plant whatever makes money quickly. So they plant more and more of the high-producing kind and replace the local, lesser-yielding grains. Yet, the new varieties, not having been developed in the local area, have an unknown tolerance for certain diseases.

Because of this an article in London’s New Scientist sounds the alarm: If the few new types were to succumb to a disease, the results would be catastrophic. There would be little to replace them with for a while, as it takes time to develop new strains resistant to a new disease. The article concluded that the possibility of disaster may have been multiplied instead of being decreased by man’s tampering with the natural creation.

Has It Happened Before?

However, is that fear just a theoretical one? Not at all. It has happened before to crops that had too narrow a genetic base.

One example of this was the epidemic that struck potatoes during the last century. It was known as the late blight disease. In 1845 a serious outbreak of the disease was experienced in Europe. That was followed in 1846 by more losses in Europe, and by a disaster in Ireland.

The Irish had turned the bulk of their land to potato production, growing one variety predominantly. The blight devastated this potato crop. The World Book Encyclopedia tells what happened as a result: “The potato famine of the 1840’s caused the worst disaster in Irish history. . . . about 750,000 persons died of starvation and disease. During those years, hundreds of thousands of persons left Ireland.”

A more recent example occurred in this century, about twenty years ago. Oat breeders in the United States began to produce a new high-yielding variety of oats. It involved crosses in an oat family called Victory. These varieties were widely accepted and planted. But then there occurred an increase in a particular fungus that took a high toll of the oat crop. Within two years, this fungus became so widespread that the Victory-type oats could no longer be safely grown.

In the 1930’s a wheat variety was developed called the Hope gene. It promised to solve the problem of losses from stem rust. In a few years whole areas of the western United States, from Texas to North Dakota, were planted in it. But by the late 1940’s a new and highly virulent fungus arose. All the bread and durum wheat grown in the United States, and Canada, was susceptible to it. The new fungus spread rapidly in the major wheat-growing areas and took its toll. For several years it resulted in the near halting of durum wheat production in the Northern Great Plains.

Most Recent Setbacks

In 1971 the New York Times carried this headline: “A Triumph of Genetics Threatens Disaster.” The accompanying article told about the improved types of hybrid corn introduced in the United States since 1950. These had more than doubled the corn yield per acre.

But then, in 1970, there came an unexpected attack by a new virulent disease called the southern corn leaf blight. It exposed the vulnerability of the specialized corn planted by most farmers. Between July and harvesttime in 1970 about 700 million bushels of corn were destroyed! That was 15 percent of the entire corn crop, worth about one billion dollars!

Of this corn disaster, the New York Times commented:

“The basic vulnerability arises from the fact that all farmers want to plant the best varieties of each crop at the same time. The resulting uniformity threatens disaster when some new mutant enemy​—like the latest variety of southern corn leaf blight—​appears.

“As in so many other areas of the modern world, that which makes short-run good sense economically poses serious long-run problems, both ecologically and economically.”

However, have any of the newest grain varieties suffered this way? Yes. Already the new rice has been affected. In the book The Environmental Crisis it was noted: “Already IR-8 rices have had a lot of trouble from this problem, but even bigger monocultures are being created.”

A “monoculture” is the growing of a single crop and generally not using the land in any other way. So although trouble is being experienced, even larger monocultures of the new grains appear to be the rule because farmers want to make money quickly.

In February of 1972, new figures were released from the National Food and Agriculture Council about the situation in the Philippines. They showed that a deadly plant virus called tungro had blighted some 140,000 acres of riceland in Luzon and in Mindanao. President Ferdinand Marcos told the Philippine Congress: “It was a disastrous year [1971] for Philippine agriculture.”

Because of the new high-yield rices planted after 1966 the Philippines had experienced self-sufficiency and a small surplus up to 1970. But last year, 1971, huge imports became necessary​—460,000 metric tons of rice. And the government predicts that the country faces a vast shortage of nearly 640,000 metric tons in 1972 and about the same in 1973.

So planting larger and larger areas of a crop with too narrow a genetic base is a very dangerous procedure, and shortsighted. But that is not the only problem connected with the new grains.

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The contrast between blighted hybrid corn (right) and unaffected, open-pollinated corn (left)

Who Benefits Most From the “Green Revolution”?

WHAT might the average person conclude when he reads how the “green revolution” has increased yields so spectacularly? He is apt to think that more and more hungry people are being fed so that their numbers are decreasing.

Is that the case? Unfortunately, it is not. It is not the most needy who are benefiting the most. We can see why when agriculture experts explain what must be done to produce the new high-yield crops.

For one thing, explains Professor of Virology Dean Fraser of Indiana University, the new seeds produce abundantly “only with the application of large amounts of fertilizer.” So fertilizer must also be available. But fertilizer supplies are not always plentiful in underdeveloped lands.

Even when such supplies are available, the farmer must be able to afford the fertilizer. Most farmers in poorer lands are themselves poor. Hence, the farmer who is already better off and can afford the fertilizer usually reaps the greater benefits, not the one who suffers the most hunger or poverty.

A More Urgent Requirement

There is something else required that is even more critical than fertilizer. In India’s Green Revolution author F. R. Frankel states: “The successful cultivation of the dwarf wheats depends even more heavily on assured supplies of water. In fact, irrigation at fixed times in the growth cycle of the plant is essential to the realization of its high-yield potential.” And rice needs even more water than wheat.

Irrigation is not the same as rainfall. The new varieties cannot depend upon uncertain rainfall. They require regular irrigation. So an assured supply of water is a necessity. This irrigation water could come from river systems by means of canals. But in poorer lands, these often have not been built. In most cases pumps are required to bring groundwater to the surface.

All of this takes technology; machines are needed to dig canals, and factories to make pumps. Also, Frankel says: “In addition, the new wheats also require more sophisticated farm equipment to produce optimum yields: improved ploughs, discs, and harrows for proper land leveling [otherwise irrigation would not be practical]; seed and fertilizer drills for shallow planting and exact spacing of seedlings; and plant protection equipment to ward off rusts and other diseases.”

Who is in a position to afford all of this? Again, it is the farmer who is already more prosperous.

Note that protection equipment is needed. This includes the heavy use of pesticides to protect the new grains. Not only does this take money to obtain, but it is a pollutant. However, wide use is excused as the lesser of two evils. It is felt that a hungry man is not as concerned about long-range harm from pesticides. He wants to get food into his stomach. Yet, there is the inevitable price to pay later.

Summarizing these requirements, U.S. News & World Report stated: “The new seeds alone, however, cannot revolutionize agriculture. Their full genetic potential cannot be realized without irrigation and plenty of fertilizer and pesticides.” All of that takes money. The poor and hungry are not the ones who have it.

Unevenly Distributed

Because of such reasons as the foregoing, the book India’s Green Revolution declares: “The gains of the new technology have been very unevenly distributed.”

This conclusion is backed up in the book The Survival Equation, which says this:

“One must say that the revolution is highly ‘selective,’ . . . It is enough to recall that three-fourths of India’s cultivated acreage is not irrigated, and ‘dry’ farming predominates. If for no other reason, vast parts of the country have not been touched by the transformation at all and equally vast parts can boast only of ‘small islands within.’ . . .

“The green revolution affects the few rather than the many not only because of environmental conditions but because the majority of the farmers lack resources . . . Waiting to be part of it and yet not getting there create potentially disturbing social, economic and political issues. And this is the other side of the coin in any assessment of the course of the green revolution.”

Hence, while total harvests and income may go up, they are not evenly distributed. For example, in two of India’s major wheat-growing areas, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, an estimated 80 percent of all farms are less than eight acres in size. This means that they usually do not have the resources to take advantage of the new technology. So a relatively small percentage of the really needy are benefited. In fact, in all India, it is said that 185 million people live on farms which are less than five acres in size.

Also, in many poorer lands there are farmers who do not own their farms but who rent from landlords. And in recent years, land values have risen. Near areas where the “green revolution” has been in evidence, values have sometimes risen three-, four- or fivefold. As a consequence, rents have skyrocketed, making it more difficult for the tenant farmer. And some landowners, seeing the profits that can be made from the newer crops, decide to farm the land themselves. So they push the tenant farmers off the land, reducing them to landless workers.

The number of landless workers in rural areas is staggering. In India alone those who own no land are said to be over 100 million persons. That is in addition to the millions of poor people crowded into the cities.

These landless workers in India, together with the 185 million others operating less than five acres, represent nearly 309 million people! That is the majority of India’s rural population. And most of them live in abject poverty. Their average income is said to be only 200 rupees (about $21) per person per year.

The results? India’s Green Revolution states that this has “actually led to an absolute deterioration in the economic condition” of the poorer people. And an economist writes in The Survival Equation that ‘the rich get richer, but the poor poorer.’

Thus, the very people that the “green revolution” was to help are the very ones it is helping the least. And in the underdeveloped nations of the world, that is a problem of huge proportions.

“Green Revolution” Could Turn “Red”

The scope of the problem can be seen by noting the words of India’s Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. Addressing the Chief Ministers of all the states in India, she said: “The warning of the times is that unless the green revolution is accompanied by a revolution based on social justice the green revolution may not remain green.”

The implication is that it could turn “red,” that is, Communistic, as a reaction against continued poverty, hunger and injustice. That has happened before where the poor have seen their situation deteriorating while others, especially the wealthier, benefited from new technology.

Nor should you conclude that this is just an isolated situation in one country. It is the rule rather than the exception. An agricultural official from Colombia told guests at a food conference in that country: “The ‘Green Revolution’ is bypassing the people, the people who need it the most. It is deepening the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’”

Also, The Bulletin, an Australian weekly magazine, said: “The failure of food to get ahead of numbers is not primarily an agricultural problem but an economic one. The fact is, the mass of people are too poor to buy the better foods they need, even when they are available.” And that is true to an extent even in the United States, where the government pays farmers to keep land out of production while at the same time millions of Americans are undernourished, not able to afford an adequate diet for good health.

Summarizing this situation, a late report issued by A. H. Boerma, Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, declares: “The distribution of the added income in agriculture has, if anything, become more unequal, with the result that the absolute numbers of hungry and malnourished have increased over the years.”

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The book “India’s Green Revolution” states that only a minority are benefiting and that most of the poor are getting poorer

Will the “Green Revolution” Be Enough?

THE problem of hunger is bad enough today. But experts agree that it soon will get much worse.

Why? Because there is something else to consider. And that something is regarded as the greatest problem of all.

Georg Borgstrom, a professor of food science at Michigan State University, points out what it is: “Anyone who thinks that the current world protein crisis is going to blow over and take care of itself should remember: the hungry of the world are multiplying twice as fast as the well fed.”

In fact, a late United Nations report shows that the hungry peoples of the world are actually increasing two and a half times as fast as those who are well fed. Thus, while it is true that more people are eating better because the population in ‘prosperous’ countries increases, it is also true that the number of people in poor countries who are not eating enough grows much faster. That is what concerns authorities most when they talk about a “population explosion.”

So in spite of the “green revolution,” the hunger problem is not being solved. U.S. News & World Report of March 6, 1972, states: “The world’s population boom shows no sign of slowing, and may even speed up in years ahead. . . . Population is now rising by 75 million a year​—enough to create the equivalent of a new Bangladesh in 12 months. . . . So explosive is the growth that population authorities fear hunger will be widespread in many countries of the developing world.”

India’s present population of some 570 million increases by about 14 million each year. Concerning this the New York Times says: “Unless the rate is reduced significantly India will have a billion people by the year 2000, far outstripping any increase in food output.”

However, another source warns that even if India gradually achieved the “extraordinary feat of cutting its birth rate in half” in the years ahead, this would still not be enough. Its population would exceed one billion about the year 2000 anyhow!

It is not that the earth cannot support 3 ¹⁄₂ or 4 billion people, or more. It can. But the world’s economic, social and political structure is so arranged that it locks into grinding poverty and hunger more people each year.

No More ‘Miracles’

What also disturbs some authorities is the realization that future large increases in food production will be harder to come by. Much of the best land in poorer countries has already been planted in the new seeds.

That is why an acknowledged authority on the “green revolution,” Lester R. Brown of the Overseas Development Council, says: “Even though we have some short-term breathing space made possible by the ‘green revolution,’ we cannot continue expanding food production forever. There are certain finite limits on how far we can raise yields.” And Professor Fraser says in The People Problem:

“I am afraid that many will consider the temporary amelioration of the food crisis as evidence that science will always rescue us. . . .

“There will be further improvement, but no more quantum [large] jumps of production. The geneticists . . . are firm in their statements that future ‘miracles’ are not to be anticipated, whereas the present ones were thoroughly predictable.”

Even during the recent years of greatest success with the “green revolution,” world population grew so fast that it about canceled out the increase in harvests. And when the time comes in the poorer countries when yields per acre cannot be increased any longer while population continues to “explode,” what then?

Chemical engineer Norbert Olsen said in early 1972: “I could work 24 hours a day creating fertilizers and new ways to help produce food, and it still wouldn’t meet the need.” And Chemical Week of March 15, 1972, reports: “A four-man team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [concluded that] . . . only by stabilizing population and industrial output can man survive beyond that next 100 years.”

In some areas, the increasing population has already resulted in the steady denuding of natural vegetation. It is said that deforestation and overgrazing of grasslands in western India have created dustbowl conditions. And many plots of land have been divided and subdivided over generations within family groups so often that they cannot be divided any further and be farmed economically.

Australia’s Bulletin claims: “In less than a century, the extent of the world’s wastelands has doubled from ‘dustbowl farming’ (and the destruction is continuing), while on every single continent farmers (and industry) are mining the vital capital stores of underground water to feed their crops, sometimes at a dangerous rate.”

Was Malthus Right?

The Bulletin concludes: “That gloomy, old 18th-century pessimist Thomas Malthus is proving right after all. Since he wrote, vast tracts of land have been opened up and science has increased yields spectacularly; yet the net result is more hungry and starving people than ever before.”

The book The Environmental Crisis also states: “There are now more hungry and weakened people on this planet than there were human beings in 1850.” In 1850 there were one billion people on earth!

How many people, right now, are actually dying from the results of hunger? Stanford’s Paul Ehrlich says: “If we take the only intelligent definition of starvation​—that a person is starved to death if an adequate diet would have assured survival—​then the level of deaths due to starvation in the world today is truly colossal, somewhere between 5 million and 20 million people a year.” That is nearly 55,000 persons a day dying from hunger!

Of course, some officials would object to such an interpretation of the situation. But it must be remembered that few government authorities like to admit that the people in their countries are dying from hunger. Yet, ever so many persons in poor countries who are listed as dying from some disease are actually dying as an indirect result of hunger. If they could have had an adequate diet, they would not be dying prematurely.

But what about the “green revolution”? Are concerned observers such as Ehrlich ignoring the advances made so far? He answers:

“We have produced a generation of agriculturists who can farm Iowa beautifully; they can get out press releases beautifully, but they cannot count and do not realize what the world situation is. . . .

“They stand up in meetings and say, ‘But, you know we can do high-yield this and high-yield that.’ I reply, ‘When you can feed the 3.5 billion people living today, come around again, and we will talk about going on to 7 billion. Until then, sit down and shut up, because you are not doing any good.’”

This calls to mind the prediction made several years ago by two agronomists, William and Paul Paddock. In their book Famine​—1975! they declared that world famine was inevitable during the mid-1970’s. But then the “green revolution” began with its initial optimism, and many belittled such famine predictions.

Now, however, authorities are not as prone to ridicule. An official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization gives this realistic appraisal: “We still don’t know for sure. . . . We may yet discover that the Paddocks weren’t wrong​—they were simply premature in their dates.”

Many feel as does Ehrlich who says: “I think the actual date is a quibble. . . . I frankly tend toward tremendous pessimism. People say to me, ‘What do you think our chances are [for avoiding world famine]?’ I answer that our chances for success may be 2 percent now, and that if we work really hard, we might move them up to 3 percent.”

What is significant is the fact that such dire predictions are being voiced now, in the midst of the “green revolution.” Too, the last few years have seen relatively favorable crop conditions, with good rainfall. But the natural pattern does not continue favorable. There are periodic droughts, such as India experienced in 1965 and 1966. With world population, especially the poor, having grown so much since then, similar droughts would bring on immense catastrophes in the future.

What Is the Answer?

No, the “green revolution” is not the answer to this world’s hunger problems. And it is not just agriculture experts who acknowledge this. A far higher source, man’s Creator, Jehovah God, says that it is not the answer.

God’s own Word, the Holy Scriptures, contains many prophecies that tell us what the future holds. Bible prophecy calls our time “the last days.” (2 Tim. 3:1) It gives the many evidences that mark this significant time in human history. One evidence foretold was that “there will be food shortages . . . in one place after another.”​—Matt. 24:7.

Hence, whatever success new types of grains may have will be short-lived. The present system of rule among the nations cannot stop food shortages for very long.

But food shortages will be stopped, and soon! Jehovah God guarantees in his Word that he will permanently solve mankind’s problems, including that of hunger.

First of all, what is needed is a new administration for governing this earth and its peoples. Divisive nationalism, selfish commercialism and wasteful wars must be eliminated so that earth’s resources can be properly used.

How will God accomplish that? By taking a direct hand in human affairs. His Word promises that he will forcibly remove all the governmental and economic arrangements of this present system of things. That will pave the way for an entirely new order here on earth. That new order will be ruled by the heavenly government that Jesus Christ taught his followers to pray for, God’s kingdom. In fact, that heavenly kingdom is what God will use to “crush and put an end to all these kingdoms” existing today.​—Dan. 2:44; Matt. 6:9, 10.

Under God’s Kingdom rule, the peoples then living on earth are promised “a banquet of well-oiled dishes” in an era when “nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore.” This heavenly government of God guarantees a proper distribution of the earth’s wealth.​—Isa. 25:6; 2:4.

Therefore, do not be fooled by suggestions that humans will solve today’s gigantic food problem. They will not. It is not scientists and their “green revolution,” but “the Maker of heaven and earth” who will be the One to satisfy the needs of all mankind. (Ps. 146:6, 7) When? His Word promises: soon! Indeed, within this very generation God’s kingdom will rule without a rival, to the eternal blessing of all who worship the true God.​—Matt. 24:34.