The first stage of the green revolution. "Green revolution

As you know, the 1970s turned out to be extremely unfavorable for most developing countries - they survived the fuel and energy crisis, large-scale natural disasters, deteriorating conditions foreign trade etc.

Part of these problems was the aggravation of the food situation. Net food imports (ie imports minus exports) rose from an average of 15 million tons in 1966-1970 to 35 million tons in 1976-1979. Crisis state Agriculture significantly accelerated the development of the green revolution in the 70-90s.

The term "green revolution" itself was first used in 1968 by W. Goud, director of the US Agency for International Development. With this phrase, he characterized the already visible significant changes in the agriculture of Mexico and Asian countries. And they began with a program adopted in the early 1940s by the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The green revolution is a transition from extensive farming, when the size of fields was increased to intensive farming, when productivity was increased, all kinds of new technologies were actively applied. This is the transformation of agriculture based on modern agricultural technology. This is the introduction of new varieties of crops and new methods leading to higher yields.

Programs for the development of agriculture in countries in need of food, the main tasks were the following:

breeding new varieties with higher yields that would be resistant to pests and weather phenomena;

development and improvement of irrigation systems;

expanding the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, as well as modern agricultural machinery .

The "Green Revolution" is associated with the name of an American scientist who received in 1970 Nobel Prize for his contribution to solving the food problem. This is Norman Ernest Borlaug. He has been developing new varieties of wheat since the beginning of the new agricultural program in Mexico.

As a result of his work, a lodging-resistant variety with a short stem was obtained, and the yield in this country increased 3 times in the first 15 years.

Later, other countries adopted the experience of growing new varieties. Latin America, India, Asian countries, Pakistan. Borlaug, described as "feeding the world," led the International Wheat Improvement Program and later acted as a consultant and lecturer.

Speaking about the changes that the Green Revolution brought, the scientist who stood at its origins himself said that this was only a temporary victory, and recognized both the problems in implementing programs to increase food production in the world, and the obvious environmental damage to the planet.

2. Results of the green revolution

Norman Borlaug developed the Mexicale wheat variety, which yielded 3 times the yield of the old varieties. Following Borlaug, other breeders began to develop high-yielding varieties of corn, soybeans, cotton, rice and other crops.

Together with these record-breaking varieties, new intensive tillage systems with soil turnover, high doses of fertilizers, irrigation, a wide variety of pesticides and monoculture, i.e. growing the same crop in the same field for many years .

Highly productive animals also appeared, for the maintenance of their health not only plentiful feed was needed, but also vitamins, antibiotics, and growth stimulants for rapid weight gain. The first green revolution was especially successful in the countries of the tropics, since with year-round cultivation of plants, the income from new varieties was especially large.

The Green Revolution developed under the influence of both the increased return on investment in the new agro-industrial complex, and the large-scale activities of the state.

It created the necessary additional infrastructure, organized the procurement system and, as a rule, maintained high purchase prices - in contrast to the initial stage of modernization in the 50s and 60s. .

As a result, in 1980-2000 in Asia, the average annual growth rate of agricultural (mainly food) production reached 3.5%.

Since such rates exceeded the natural growth of the population, in most countries this made it possible to solve the food problem.

At the same time, the green revolution unfolded unevenly and did not immediately make it possible to solve agrarian problems as a whole; they are still acute in a number of lagging states.

Story

The term was coined by former USAID director William Goud in .

Start green revolution was laid in Mexico in 1943 by the agricultural program of the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation. The biggest success of this program was Norman Borlaug, who developed many high-performance varieties of wheat, including lodging-resistant short stems. K - Mexico fully provided itself with grain and began to export it, for 15 years the grain yield in the country has increased 3 times. Borlaug's designs were used in breeding work in Colombia, India, Pakistan, in Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Effects

At the same time, due to the widespread use of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, environmental problems arose. The intensification of agriculture has disrupted water regime soils, causing massive salinization and desertification. Copper and sulfur preparations, which cause soil pollution with heavy metals, were replaced by aromatic, heterocyclic, organochlorine and phosphorus compounds (karbofos, dichlorvos, DDT, etc.) by the middle of the 20th century. Unlike older preparations, these substances work at a lower concentration, which has reduced the cost of chemical treatment. Many of these substances were found to be stable and poorly degraded by biota.

Case in point- DDT. This substance has even been found in animals of Antarctica, thousands of kilometers from the nearest application sites for this chemical.

John Zerzan, a prominent anarcho-primitivist ideologue and civilization denier, writes about his assessment of the Green Revolution in his essay "Agriculture: The Demonic Engine of Civilization":

Another post-war phenomenon was Green revolution, declared as the salvation of the impoverished countries of the "Third World" with the help of American capital and technology. But instead of feeding the hungry, the Green Revolution drove millions of victims of a program that supports large corporate farms from the arable lands of Asia, Latin America and Africa. The result was a monstrous technological colonization that made the world dependent on the capital-intensive agricultural business and destroyed the former farming communities. There was a need for extensive expenditures of fossil fuels and, in the end, this colonization turned into an unprecedented violence against nature.

Notes

Links

• Norman E. Borlaug"Green Revolution": yesterday, today and tomorrow // Ecology and Life, No. 4, 2000.

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See what the "Green Revolution" is in other dictionaries:

Conventional name for a phenomenon that took place in the 1960s–70s. in a number of developing countries. The "Green Revolution" was to intensify the production of grain crops (wheat, rice) in order to increase their gross yields, which was supposed to solve ... ... Geographic Encyclopedia

A term coined in the 1960s. 20th century in connection with the process of introducing new high-yielding varieties grain crops (wheat, rice) with the aim of a sharp increase in food resources. "Green Revolution" ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

A set of measures for a significant (revolutionary) increase in crop yields, especially cereals (wheat, rice, corn, etc.) in some countries of South Asia (in particular, India, Pakistan, the Philippines), Mexico ... Ecological dictionary

"GREEN REVOLUTION"- a term that appeared in con. 1960s in the bourgeois economy and s. X. lit. re to denote the process of introducing the achievements of scientific and technical. progress in s. x ve and to characterize the ways, methods and means of a sharp increase in productivity p. X. production, ch ... Demographic Encyclopedic Dictionary

Revolution (from late Latin revolutio turn, upheaval, transformation, conversion) is a global qualitative change in the development of nature, society or knowledge, associated with an open break with the previous state. Originally the term revolution ... ... Wikipedia

The problem of providing underdeveloped countries with food, unresolved to this day, did not arise yesterday. Attempts to solve it were constantly made on different levels. In the 40s of the 20th century, transformations began in the countries of Latin America, which were supposed to lead to an increase in productivity, which means to allow these countries to produce enough agricultural products to meet the needs of their populations. These transformations have been called the Green Revolution. Indeed, significant changes have taken place. Have they become a boon or have they further aggravated the situation of countries in need? We will discuss further.

The term "green revolution" itself was first used in 1968 by W. Goud, director of the US Agency for International Development. With this phrase, he characterized the already visible significant changes in and countries of Asia. And they began with a program adopted in the early 1940s by the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Main tasks

The main objectives of the programs in food- needy countries were to:

• breeding new varieties with higher yields that would be resistant to pests and weather phenomena;
• development and improvement of irrigation systems;
• increased use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers and modern agricultural machinery.

The "Green Revolution" is associated with the name of an American scientist who received the Nobel Prize in 1970 for his contribution to solving the food problem. This is Norman Ernest Borlaug. He has been developing new varieties of wheat since the beginning of the new agricultural program in Mexico. As a result of his work, a lodging-resistant variety with a short stem was obtained, and the yield in this country increased 3 times in the first 15 years.

Later, the experience of growing new varieties was adopted by other countries of Latin America, India, Asian countries, and Pakistan. Borlaug, described as "feeding the world," led the International Wheat Improvement Program and later acted as a consultant and lecturer.

Speaking about the changes that the Green Revolution brought, the scientist who stood at its origins himself said that this was only a temporary victory, and recognized both the problems in implementing programs to increase food production in the world, and the obvious environmental damage to the planet.

"Green Revolution" and its consequences

What were the results of the transformations that lasted several decades in different parts Sveta? Some statistics. There is evidence that the number of calories in the daily diet of people in developing countries has increased by 25%, and many attribute this to the achievements that the Green Revolution brought. This was the result of the development of new land and increased yields of rice and wheat in already developed fields in 15 countries. 41 new varieties of wheat were obtained. With an increase in the area of ​​cultivated land by 10-15%, the increase in yield was 50-74%. However, the transformations practically did not affect the needy countries of Africa, including due to the underdevelopment of local infrastructure.

The reverse side of the coin is, first of all, the impact on the biosphere. Traces of the long-banned drug DDT are still found in Antarctica. significant damage was done to the soils, and such intensive use of the fields led to their almost complete depletion. Illiterate installation and maintenance have caused pollution of surface water bodies. Today a resource for further development in this direction is almost exhausted, which means that the severity of the food problem will only increase.

There is also a lot of talk about how, in reality, as a result of the Green Revolution, developing countries have become a kind of food colonies. The level of development of agriculture in private farms is still low, and many private farmers have lost fertile land. The question of the impact on human health remains open.

a term denoting a sharp increase from ser. 1960s production of agricultural crops in many countries of the world through the use of high-yielding varieties of seeds, improving the culture of agriculture, taking into account natural and climatic conditions.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

GREEN REVOLUTION

(Green Revolution) In the early 1960s the improvement of agricultural production in the Third World countries, financed by international funds, led to what came to be called the "Green Revolution". Improvement went primarily through the use of hybrid seeds, mechanization and pest control. Countries were assisted in the dissemination of high-yielding varieties developed by an international team in Mexico. The same applies to pesticides and to the system of saving resources on the basis of large-scale production, which can only be organized through the mechanization of agriculture. This initiative actually led to a significant increase in agricultural production in the Third World. However, the "green revolution" was opposed by "environmentalists" (environmentalism), and others, because it led to environmental disasters in those countries where it had the greatest success. Successful mechanization of agriculture led to a change in the structure work force and society as a whole, the strengthening of class distinctions, as well as the exclusion from agricultural production of some national minorities and politically marginalized groups such as women. In addition, new plant varieties were unstable to local diseases and required wide application pesticides polluting water bodies and soil and increasing the dependence of many Third World countries on imports (since pesticides were produced in the West). Moreover, the commercialization of agriculture has led to the export of food from these countries, increasing the dependence of producers on a market that does not always work in the interests of most producers.

Agriculture and its economic features.

• In agricultural production economic process reproduction is intertwined with the natural, general economic laws are combined with the action of natural laws. In the agro-industrial complex, plants and animals are used as objects of labor, which develop according to natural laws.
• Land is the main and irreplaceable means of production, that is, the means and subject of labor, while in industry it is the spatial basis for the location of production. It acts as a means of labor when, with its fertility, it affects the growth and development of agricultural plants, as an object of labor. When it is processed, fertilizers are applied to it, etc.
• The industry is highly dependent on the state of natural and climatic conditions
• Seasonality of agricultural production. It is caused by the discrepancy between the period of production and the working period. This is manifested in the uneven (during the year) use of resources (sowing periods, harvesting costs for seeds and fuel), sales of products and receipt of proceeds. Spatial dispersal of production, which requires highly mobile units, a large supply of equipment, etc.
• The release of heterogeneous products requires specific means of production. Most of them cannot be used for other agricultural work (for example, a beet harvester for harvesting grain crops).
• Price inelasticity of food demand: Demand is weakly responsive to price changes. Therefore, when approaching the moment of market saturation with food products (if commodity producers reduce prices in order to increase sales), cash receipts will decrease and production may become unprofitable. sooner or later they are satisfied and a further increase in production will be unprofitable

When a relative saturation of the market with food and agricultural products is achieved, the price reduction does not provide an adequate increase in demand.

"Green Revolution" and its main directions.

Green revolution - this is a transition from extensive farming, when the size of the fields was increased to intensive farming - when the yield was increased, all kinds of new technologies were actively applied. This is the transformation of agriculture based on modern agricultural technology. This is the introduction of new varieties of crops and new methods leading to higher yields.

Programs for the development of agriculture in countries in need of food, the main tasks were the following:

• breeding new varieties with higher yields that would be resistant to pests and weather phenomena;
• development and improvement of irrigation systems;
• expanding the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, as well as modern agricultural machinery

Agro-industrial complex. Geography of world crop and livestock production.