Increasing Yields:The Green Revolution

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Sources:

World HungerSome Numbers

Current estimates set the world population at 7 billion >1 billion people live on $1 a day or less925 million people across the world are considered to be hungryEvery day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes (more than 20,000 people in all)

Source: Bread for the World, FAO

How many hungry people?

That’s 1 in 8 peopleworldwide

Does the world produce enoughfood now? ~2,700 calories perperson.

How much of the food produced in the world goes to waste? (mostly by rottingor being eaten by vermin in poor countries, thrown away in rich countries)

Yields have increased

• British wheat yields tripled in last 50 years– 15X increase from 500

years ago

• Cereal yield worldwide doubled since 1960s

Reasons Yields Increase

• Increased inputs– Labor

– Fertilizer

– Machinery

• increased output – Using technology

– without increasing inputs

• Increased efficiency

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

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

Inputs

• Animal Traction– 400 million draft animals

in world

– ½ World’s ag land farmed with draft animals

– ¼ farmed with hand tools

– ¼ mechanized

China

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

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 cheapZimbabwe

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

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.

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

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

                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                              

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, IndiaKerala, India

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

Green Revolution• Started in Mexico, late 40s

• By 1960’s: 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

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

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?

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

Green Revolution

• 1970’s: spread to millions of third world farmers

• 1990’s: 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

CIMMYT

• CIMMYT– International Maize

and Wheat Improvement Center

– In Mexico

• Part of CGIAR– Consultative Group

on International Agricultural Research

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

Criticisms of the Green Revolution

• Green Revolution hasn’t alleviated hunger

• Economic power, land controlled by few

• Technology benefits wealthy

• Therefore Green Revolution increases inequity

• More hunger AND more food at same time

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

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

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

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

Green revolution in India

•

Green revolution problems

• Requires heavy doses of fertilizer, irrigation, equipment– Fossil fuel use increase

• Emphasizes rice, wheat (commodity crops) not subsistence crops

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

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

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.

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%

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

Rice

• Rice breeding at International Rice Research Institute: IRRI

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

Rice Problem

• 1973: IR26 Resistant to brown plant hopper– Worked 2 years – Then Biotype 2 of

plant hoppers attacked

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

Profits

• Profits from Green Revolution go to – Middlemen

– Banks

– Chemical companies

– Biggest growers

• Grain prices fall

• Farms get bigger

Brazil

Increased Dependency

• Poor countries must import:– Seeds

– Fertilizer

– Pesticides

– Herbicides

• Cost to India increased 600% 1960-1980

• Biotechnology leads to more dependency

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

Destruction of Ag Resources

• Desertification

• Soil erosion

• Pesticide contamination

• Groundwater depletion

• Salinization

• Urban sprawl

• Genetic resources shrinking

• Fossil fuels depleting

Sustainable Agriculture Goals

• Environmental Health

• Economic Profitability

• Social and Economic Equity

Agroecology

• Sustainable farming based on ecological principles:

– Diversity– Interdependence– Synergy– Complex interactions

• Science to improve not displace traditional farming

• Low energy, capital costs

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

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

• 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

Evergreen Revolution

Vandana Shiva

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

                                                                                    

http://myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=Shiva

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

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

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

Genetic Engineering:The Next Green Revolution ?

http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_15/b3624011.htm

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

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

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

Fertilizer use

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

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

CAFOs

•

• Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations

•

CAFO

• • Chickens with little room to run around in a darkened warehouse

• Diseases spread easily, so chicken farmers use lots of ______________

Biotechnology

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

• Herbicide resistance• Pesticide resistance

Terminator technology• Genes added to crops that make the seeds infertile• Therefore, farmers can’t 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 hypeplants are infertile, so low fitness

•