Increasing Yields: The Green Revolution

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Increasing YieldsThe Green Revolution
Sources
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How many hungry people?
Thats 1 in 8 people worldwide
Does the world produce enough food now? 2,700
calories per person.
How much of the food produced in the world goes
to waste? (mostly by rotting or being eaten by
vermin in poor countries, thrown away in rich
countries)
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Yields have increased

• British wheat yields tripled in last 50 years
• 15X increase from 500 years ago
• Cereal yield worldwide doubled since 1960s

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Reasons Yields Increase

• Increased inputs
• Labor
• Fertilizer
• Machinery
• increased output
• Using technology
• without increasing inputs
• Increased efficiency

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Production Function

• Initially, as input increases, output increases
• Eventually, a point of maximum efficiency will be
  reached
• Diminishing returns more input leads to smaller
  and smaller gains
• i.e. marginal costs increase

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Inputs

• Fertilizer
• Can improve yields dramatically 20-1000
• Diminished response if keep adding
• Reduces growth at high levels
• Effectiveness depends on
• Water/Irrigation
• Timing of application
• Biggest increase will be in Africa
• Dem. Rep. Congo uses 1 fertilizer used in South
  Africa

Cassava in Gambia
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Inputs

• Animal Traction
• 400 million draft animals in world
• ½ Worlds ag land farmed with draft animals
• ¼ farmed with hand tools
• ¼ mechanized

China
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Use of Draft Animals

• Do the work of 3-4 humans
• Increase land able to be farmed
• Animal plowing breaks soil better than by hand
• Source of fertilizer
• Initial cost high
• Profitable if can expand land

Vietnam
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Tractors

• Poorest farmers will consider moving from hand
  tools to animals
• Farmers using animals will consider using
  machinery
• May not be efficient choice
• Credit limited
• Gas expensive
• Maintenance expensive
• But labor cheap

Zimbabwe
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Big Growers More Efficient?

• Are big growers more efficient?
• have the know-how to produce
• Would redistribution of land (i.e. breaking up
  big farms) lower production?
• hurt the hungry?

Brazil Farm
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Big growers NOT always more efficient

• Sometimes Big Growers are less efficient than
  small growers in yield/acre
• Often land left idle by large landowners (89 in
  Brazil)
• Big operations are fossil fuel intensive
  requiring 10 Calories for every one produced
  small growers use fewer calories to produce one.

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Small farmers often more efficient

• Small farmers use labor more intensively
• Small farmers use space more efficiently
• Small landowners more motivated for production
  and conservation

Tanzania
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Big Growers

• Advantages of wealth and size
• Big farms can more easily survive
• Large operations with absentee owners (investors)
  tend to
• Overuse the soil
• Over-spray with chemicals
• Remove wealth generated from the community

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Land Reform

• World Bank productivity would be increased if
  land distribution more equitable
• Land reform (redistribution) successful after
  WWII
• South Korea,
• Taiwan
• China
• Recent success
• Japan
• Zimbabwe
• Kerala, India

Kerala, India
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The Green Revolution

• WHY?
• Emerged out of a concern over population growth
• Could agricultural production keep pace?
• WHAT?
• The transformation of agriculture in many
  developing countries that led to significant
  increases in cereal production between the 1940s
  and 1970s.
• Widespread introduction of science and technology
  in agriculture

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Green Revolution

• Started in Mexico, late 40s
• By 1960s improved wheat varieties gave dramatic
  increase in yield in Mexico
• Mexico food importer to food exporter
• Varieties more responsive to irrigation and
  petrochemical fertilizers
• Soon new rice and maize varieties

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Recipe for a Revolution

• High Yielding Varieties (HYV) seeds
• Increased nitrogen absorption potential
• Semi-dwarf varieties
• By 1970
• 20 of wheat area and 30 of rice area in
  developing countries planted with HYV

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Recipe for a Revolution

• Required application of
• Nitrogen Fertilizers
• Synthetic Pesticides
• Irrigation
• F1 Hybrids
• Double-Cropping farmland
• Continued Expansion of Green Revolution crops
• As farmers got increased yields from rice and
  wheat, they planted more land in rice and wheat
  at the expense of other crops
• Effect on biodiversity?

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Norman Borlaug

• Joined Rockefeller Foundation team in Mexico 1944
• Increased yield, rust resistance in wheat
• Biggest contributor to Green Revolution
• Won Nobel Peace Prize in 1970

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Green Revolution

• 1970s spread to millions of third world farmers
• 1990s 40 of all farms in third world planted
  HYV
• 75 Rice in Asia
• 80 Wheat in third world
• 70 Corn worldwide
• Improved standard of living for millions people
  worldwide

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CIMMYT

• CIMMYT
• International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
• In Mexico
• Part of CGIAR
• Consultative Group on International Agricultural
  Research

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Social impacts

• Farmers had larger incomes
• Stimulated the non-farm economy
• Improved rural (farmers and others) nutrition
  because they had more to spend
• Slowed down conversion of land to agriculture
• But favored large, mechanized farms over small,
  family farms

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Criticisms of the Green Revolution

• Green Revolution hasnt alleviated hunger
• Economic power, land controlled by few
• Technology benefits wealthy
• Therefore Green Revolution increases inequity
• More hunger AND more food at same time

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Criticisms of the Green Revolution

• Food Insecurity of poor not addressed
• Cash Crops food flows from the poor and hungry
  nations to the rich and well-fed nations
• Green Revolution not sustainable
• destroys resource base on which agriculture
  depends

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Example India

• Self-sufficient in grain due to Green Revolution
• But 1/3 of people poor
• 5,000 children die each day
• Poor cannot afford to BUY the food

India
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Criticisms of the Green Revolution

• Early, poor had little access to credit
• Could not buy seeds, fertilizer, irrigation to
  make Green Revolution work
• Wealthy invested, got richer, drove out poor
• Now, more emphasis on loans for poor

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There are still problems

• Need good land (wealthy own)
• Agrochemicals bad for health, environment
• Expensive inputs profits to global chemical
  companies
• Rural people displaced from land
• Mechanization reduces agricultural jobs
• Not ecologically sustainable depletes soil,
  pesticide race

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Green revolution in India

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Green revolution problems

• Requires heavy doses of fertilizer, irrigation,
  equipment
• Fossil fuel use increase
• Emphasizes rice, wheat (commodity crops) not
  subsistence crops

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Philippines Example

• Two villages studied
• large and small farmers invested in Green
  Revolution
• Village 1 had more equal land holdings,
  solidarity
• All benefited from Green Revolution
• Village 2 dominated by a few wealthy landowners.
• Wealthy increased land by 50 at expense of poor

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Farm Squeeze

• Fertilizer use increases by huge amount
• Yields do not increase proportionally
• India 6x rise in fertilizer use but 2/3 less
  production/ton fertilizer
• Need more fertilizer, pesticide each year for
  same result
• Thus cost go up faster than yields cost-price
  squeeze

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Farm Squeeze

• U.S. true home of Green Revolution
• Yields up 3x
• but prices down
• To survive, must expand acreage
• to make up for lower per acre profit.

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U.S. Farm Squeeze

• Since WWII
• number of farms decreased 2/3
• average farm size up ½
• rural communities gutted
• production costs up from 50 of gross to 80

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Soil Depletion Worldwide

• Dramatic increases in yields during 1970s, 1980s
• Soil now depleted, resulting in leveling off or
  dropping yields
• 6 of Ag land in India now useless

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Rice

• Rice breeding at International Rice Research
  Institute IRRI

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Rice Problem

• 1968 IR8 rice had 2x yield increase
• Short
• need herbicides to compete with weeds
• Uniform genetically
• susceptible to pests
• Brown plant hopper devastated rice
• Insecticide spraying useless
• brown hopper resistant

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Rice Problem

• 1973 IR26 Resistant to brown plant hopper
• Worked 2 years
• Then Biotype 2 of plant hoppers attacked

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Rice Problem

• 1975 IR32 Resistant to Biotype 2
• Now Biotype 3 appeared
• Insecticides again useless
• Insecticides killed off brown hopper predators
• Resulted in 40x increase in hoppers

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Profits

• Profits from Green Revolution go to
• Middlemen
• Banks
• Chemical companies
• Biggest growers
• Grain prices fall
• Farms get bigger

Brazil
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Increased Dependency

• Poor countries must import
• Seeds
• Fertilizer
• Pesticides
• Herbicides
• Cost to India increased 600 1960-1980
• Biotechnology leads to more dependency

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Unsustainable Agriculture

• Industrial agriculture
• mining land to extract maximum output
• War between humans and weeds, insects and
  disease
• Market dictates weapons
• pesticides and chemical fertilizers
• We are destroying our food- producing resources

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Destruction of Ag Resources

• Desertification
• Soil erosion
• Pesticide contamination
• Groundwater depletion
• Salinization
• Urban sprawl
• Genetic resources shrinking
• Fossil fuels depleting

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Sustainable Agriculture Goals

• Environmental Health
• Economic Profitability
• Social and Economic Equity

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Agroecology

• Sustainable farming based on
• ecological principles
• Diversity
• Interdependence
• Synergy
• Complex interactions
• Science to improve not displace traditional
  farming
• Low energy, capital costs

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Agroecology

• Intercropping
• Mixing annual and perennial crops
• Crop rotations
• Rotate cereals and legumes
• Mixing of plant and animal production
• Rice paddies with edible weeds, fish and rice
• Not continuous production of one crop

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Africa

• Fragile soils must be protected
• Could mix millet, cattle, and Acacia trees
• Trees fix nitrogen, have deep tap roots
• Cattle eat tree pods
• Plant millet after leaves fall
• Could support 2x population in Senegal
• Aid agencies instead promoting new seeds,
  fertilizers, agrochemicals, biotechnology, free
  trade

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Evergreen Revolution

• Swaminathan led Green Revolution in India
• Agrees cannot maintain crop yields
• Problems
• Excessive use of pesticides
• Groundwater depletion
• Pollution
• Monoculture
• Therefore, India needs sustainable agriculture
• Evergreen Revolution

M.S. Swaminathan World Food Prize 1987
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Vandana Shiva

• "Ecological problems arise from applying the
  engineering paradigm to life."

http//myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?heroShiva
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Critic of the Green Revolution in India

• The Green Revolution has been a failure.
• It has led to reduced genetic diversity,
• increased vulnerability to pests,
• soil erosion,
• water shortages,
• reduced soil fertility,
• micronutrient deficiencies,
• soil contamination

Vandana Shiva
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Critic of the Green Revolution in India

• reduced availability of nutritious food crops
  for the local population,
• the displacement of vast numbers of small farmers
  form their land,
• rural impoverishment and
• increased tensions and conflicts.

Vandana Shiva
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Critic of the Green Revolution in India

• The beneficiaries have been
• the agrochemical industry,
• large petrochemical companies,
• manufacturers of agricultural machinery,
• dam builders and
• large landowners.

-- Vandana Shiva "The Violence of the Green
Revolution Ecological Degradation and Political
Conflict in Punjab." The Ecologist, 1991,
21(2)57-60
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Genetic EngineeringThe Next Green Revolution ?
http//www.businessweek.com/1999/99_15/b3624011.ht
m
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Next Green Revolution?

• Biotechnology will help developing countries
  accomplish things that they could never do with
  conventional plant breeding
• I believe genetically modified food crops will
  stop world hunger.

Norman Borlaug Nobel Peace Prize
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The Next Green Revolution?

• Biotechnology helps farmers produce higher yields
  on less land.
• Technology allows us to have less impact on soil
  erosion, biodiversity, wildlife, forests, and
  grasslands
• To achieve comparable yields (1950-1999) with old
  farming methods, would have needed an additional
  1.8 Billion hectares of land

Norman Borlaug Nobel Peace Prize
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Biotechnology Critic

• Biotechnology development
• Same vision as chemical industry
• Short term goals
• Enhanced yields, profit margins
• Nature should be dominated and exploited
• forced to yield more
• Prefer quick solutions
• to complex ecological problems
• Reductionist thinking about farming
• Instead of integrated systems
• Agricultural success means
• Short term profits
• Not long term sustainability

-- Jane Rissler, Union of Concerned Scientists
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Fertilizer use

• Steady increase from 1950s.
• Why erratic beginning 1980s?

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Land planted in crops

• Net Result Drop of per capita acreage - that is
  land planted per person - this decrease is due to
  an increasing population which by itself would
  lead to a decreased per capita if land were not
  added proportionally, and the additional decrease
  due to land withdrawal...
• 1950 .24 acres/person
• 1986 .1 5 acres/person
• 2000 .1 2 acres/person

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CAFOs

• Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations

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CAFO

• Chickens with little room to run around in a
  darkened warehouse
• Diseases spread easily, so chicken farmers use
  lots of ______________

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Biotechnology

• Introducing genes from one organism to a crop
  plant or animal.
• Herbicide resistance
• Pesticide resistance

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Terminator technology

• Genes added to crops that make the seeds
  infertile
• Therefore, farmers cant save seeds from their
  harvest for planting the next season
• This is typically done in poor countries
• Problems
• Farmer must buy seeds every year.
• If terminator escaped, wild plants could be made
  infertile.
• The first problem is real the second problem is
  mostly hype?plants are infertile, so low fitness

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