Increasing Yields: The Green Revolution

1. Increasing Yields:The Green Revolution Sources: http://www.lastfirst.net/images/product/R004548.jpg

3. How many hungry people? That’s 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)

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

5. Reasons Yields Increase • Increased inputs • Labor • Fertilizer • Machinery • increased output • Using technology • without increasing inputs • Increased efficiency

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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.

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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?

20. 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

21. 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

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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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

29. Green revolution in India

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

31. 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

32. 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

33. 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.

34. 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%

35. 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

36. Rice • Rice breeding at International Rice Research Institute: IRRI

37. 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

38. Rice Problem • 1973: IR26 Resistant to brown plant hopper • Worked 2 years • Then Biotype 2 of plant hoppers attacked

39. 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

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

41. Increased Dependency • Poor countries must import: • Seeds • Fertilizer • Pesticides • Herbicides • Cost to India increased 600% 1960-1980 • Biotechnology leads to more dependency

42. 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

43. Destruction of Ag Resources • Desertification • Soil erosion • Pesticide contamination • Groundwater depletion • Salinization • Urban sprawl • Genetic resources shrinking • Fossil fuels depleting

44. Sustainable Agriculture Goals • Environmental Health • Economic Profitability • Social and Economic Equity

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

46. 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

47. 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

48. 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

49. Vandana Shiva "Ecological problems arise from applying the engineering paradigm to life." http://myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=Shiva

50. 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