The Green ?

The Green ?: Revolution or Not?

Was the Green revolution truly revolutionary?

What makes a revolution? Several factors are involved in deciding what is a revolution, but the main fact is, that if it was a huge change that affected many people, it is a revolution. That is why I fervently believe that the green revolution was a revolution, and an important one at that. It affected one of the most important things we do as humans, farming, in one of the most populated regions of the world, Asia, in 3 main ways. After the green revolution farming was forever changed, by fertilizers, irrigation, and genetically modified plants.

The first thing that was changed by the green revolution was fertilizer. Soil is not an endless supply of vitamins and minerals to feed your plants with, and it must be renewed. Before the green revolution, farmers mainly used manure and compost for fertilizers, if at all. Plants grew normally, and he ground grew steadily worse in many areas. When chemical fertilizers arrived, farming was changed, and possibly not in a good way. Now, with very little effort you simply needed to spray, dig under, or otherwise add a chemical fertilizer, which would make your plants, grow bigger and better. There were drawbacks to this however, including groundwater poisoning from fertilizers that went elsewhere than the earth close to the plants, and the fertilizers could damage the plants or nearby insects or other animals. Also if too much fertilizer was used plants could grow too big, and simply fall over. However, even with all these drawbacks, it cannot be denied that fertilizer caused a great change in the agriculture department, but whether it was good or bad is still to be determined.

The second major change in the green revolution was irrigation. Before, farming depended mainly on the weather. Crops were watered when it rained, and if it didn’t rain for too long, your crops died. With the green revolution, these things changed. People started looking for other methods of getting water to their plants, and they found them. People did this in several ways. One way was to build a canal from a nearby water source to your crops to let the water flow from the river, lake, or other source of water straight to your crops. This generally provided a steady and almost effortless way to get water to your crops. Another, but later way was to simply pump it out of the water source. Another method for getting water was putting it in a reservoir, and using that for watering your plants. A third, but not final way was to dig a well and pump the water out, and use that to water your crops. These methods all had their advantages, but they drained water from the ground and from lakes and rivers, which slowly but surely drains the supply of fresh water. Another problem with this is that if you get water from a source that was contaminated with a chemical, like here in Bangladesh with arsenic, that chemical will be put into your crops, which will in turn poison people. Again, this change has had problems, but it is still a great change in the realm of farming.

The final thing that was made in the green revolution were genetically modified plants, otherwise known as GM’s. These are plants that have had their genetics modified, to make them more resilient to certain bugs, weathers, make them more drought resistant, or to increase their yields. These new plants were a new sensation, and now thousands of fields are growing plants that have been genetically modified. This is a completely new thing, and was also a great change in farming. Now crops could grow more food on them, and do all sorts of other things. This was possibly the greatest change in the green revolution, the ability to change a plant’s nature, and shape it to fit your desires a bit better. This had several drawbacks as well, including that they may not be safe, that allergies might be made worse by mixing different plants together, that they would hurt small farmers in several ways, and that it may be unethical to do this. However it is still done, and whether people like it or not, these plants are a change that are here to stay.

Now, the evidence shown to the fact that it was a great revolutionary revolution is overwhelming. South-East Asia and other parts of the world were changed irrevocably, by the three main things, fertilizers, irrigation, and GMs.There cam be no doubts in anybody’s minds, the green revolution was a huge change on the whole, and therefore it was a revolution.