Do U believe the so-called 'Green revolution' of the mid-20th century was a catastrophe.... ?

Question

for the environment,since it allowed so many third world peoples to live whom would have otherwise not have happened.Now thanks to the use of oil-based fertilizer and GM foods,is the world starting to pay the ultimate price of large scale commercial agriculture as well/

Answer 1

There have been people asserting that the world is about to be unable to feed its human population since the days of Malthus.

The assertion always appears to be within the range of credibility, as we repeatedly come close to very wide scale starvation. And the agricultural community has repeatedly made adjustments to keep us that one step ahead of disaster.

If we look back to the 1950s, and the severe food shortages of both India and China, USSR having to import major amounts of grains, if anyone back then had predicted that earth's population might rise as far as it has, it would have seemed laughable.  The green revolution was undoubtedly a major part of the cause of that change, increasing output per hectare enormously.  And of course as we have been able to feed more people, we have done so, and now need far more food than we could produce without green revolution changes.

Green revolution did give us more food per hectare provided we had enough water on the soil. But it does still leave us vulnerable if we do not have that much rainfall. The urgent need then becomes to ensure that we have adequate water for irrigation.

In the past 30 years, not only has China been feeding her people, but she has been feeding a lot of livestock to provide meat, eggs. With this we can assume that China might be able to convert back to  more vegetarian lifestyle and still survive with lower food production, but Africa has been staying precariously close to starvation.

So, while we may have more tricks up our sleeves, things we can do to survive should we have bad crop years, we have to acknowedge that our increased population has put us back into roughly the same position we were in before green revolution.

GM mostly gives us some major increases in food but with a greater risk that arises from loss of genetic variability. Anything that can kill an individual plant can kill millions of hectares of the same genetic model of plant.

Oil based fertilizers basically refers to nitrogen, and no, we are not particularly paying a major penalty yet for using that. We have used up our soils micro nutrients faster than they would have been used up without NPK  supplementation.  But over many centuries we have had  that problem even before NPK supplements became part of the scene.

What wil happen next is that, realizing that NPK are not the only elements  limiting production, we will switch to supplementing any and all micro nutrients needed. We should hope to see healthy crop production on into another lifetime.

We will, however continue to feed that ever increasing population, so every extension in our ability to produce food will quickly build population to make that increased population urgently needed.

What we have to acknowledge is that we have not had a meaningful alternative. We were on the verge of starvation at a global level, even before green revolution.

Answer 2

indeed much of human progress isn't too good for other life forms and the planet in general.  too many people all around and especially those in developed countries which use too much stuff for no reason than the consumer economy

Answer 3

you're like my neighbors. I complained about them playing the stereo at 1:30 a.m. They're vacuuming at 9:30.

I asked you to make a point and you ask about GM food. We've had organic food for for years. Do you have a point? Would you state it?

Your "green revolution" would have occurred circa 1950. No such thing happened. What do want to say and would you say it!

I haven't a clue what you're on about it. I don't think you do either. Say it, or shut up.