Socioeconomic impacts
The transition from traditional agriculture, in which inputs were generated on-farm, to Green
Revolution agriculture, which required the purchase of inputs, led to the widespread
establishment of rural credit institutions. Smaller farmers often went into debt, which in many
cases results in a loss of their farmland.[11][40] The increased level of mechanization on larger
farms made possible by the Green Revolution removed a large source of employment from the
rural economy.[11] Because wealthier farmers had better access to credit and land, the Green
Revolution increased class disparities. The rich - poor gap widened due to that. Because some
regions were able to adopt Green Revolution agriculture more readily than others (for political or
geographical reasons), interregional economic disparities increased as well. Many small farmers
are hurt by the dropping prices resulting from increased production overall.[citation needed]
The new economic difficulties of small holder farmers and landless farm workers led to
increased rural-urban migration. The increase in food production led to a cheaper food for urban
dwellers, and the increase in urban population increased the potential for industrialization.[citation
needed]
Globalization
In the most basic sense, the Green Revolution was a product of globalization as evidenced in the
creation of international agricultural research centers that shared information, and with
transnational funding from groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, and United
States Agency for International Development (USAID). Additionally, the inputs required in
Green Revolution agriculture created new markets for seed and chemical corporations, many of
which were based in the United States. For example, Standard Oil of New Jersey established
hundreds of distributors in the Philippines to sell agricultural packages composed of HYV seed,
fertilizer, and pesticides.[citation needed]
Environmental impact
[edit] Pesticides
Green Revolution agriculture relies on extensive use of pesticides, which are necessary to limit
the high levels of pest damage that inevitably occur in monocropping - the practice of producing
or growing one single crop over a wide area.
[edit] Water
Industrialized agriculture with its high yield varieties are extremely water intensive. In the US,
agriculture consumes 85% of all fresh water resources. For example, the Southwest uses 36% of
the nations water while at the same time only receiving 6% of the country's rainfall.[citation needed]
Only 60% of the water used for irrigation comes from surface water supplies. The other 40%
comes from underground aquifers that are being used up in a way similar to topsoil that makes
the aquifers,[citation needed] as Pfeiffer says, “for all intents and purposes non renewable
resources.”[citation needed] The Ogallala Aquifer is essential to a huge portion of central and southwest
plain states, but has been at annual overdrafts of 130-160% in excess of replacement. This
irrigation source for America's bread basket will become entirely unproductive in another 30
years or so.[citation needed]
Likewise, rivers are drying up at an alarming rate. In 1997, the lower parts of China’s Yellow
River were dry for a record 226 days. Over the past ten years, it has gone dry an average of 70
days a year.[citation needed] Famous lifelines such as the Nile and Ganges along with countless other
rivers are sharing in the same fate.[citation needed] The Aral Sea has lost half its area and two-thirds its
volume due to river diversion for cotton production.
Also the water quality is being compromised. In the Aral Sea, water salinization has wiped out
all native fish, leaving an economy even more dependent on the agricultural model that
originated the problem.[citation needed]
Fish are disappearing through another form of agricultural run off as well.[citation needed] When
nitrogen-intensive fertilizers wash into waterways it results in an explosion of algae and other
microorganisms that lead to oxygen depletion resulting in “dead zones”, killing off fish and other
creatures.[citation needed]
[edit] Biodiversity
The spread of Green Revolution agriculture affected both agricultural biodiversity and wild
biodiversity [41]. There is little disagreement that the Green Revolution acted to reduce
agricultural biodiversity, as it relied on just a few high-yield varieties of each crop.
This has led to concerns about the susceptibility of a food supply to pathogens that cannot be
controlled by agrochemicals, as well as the permanent loss of many valuable genetic traits bred
into traditional varieties over thousands of years. To address these concerns, massive seed banks
such as Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research’s (CGIAR) International
Plant Genetic Resources Institute (now Bioversity International) have been established (see
Svalbard Global Seed Vault).
There are varying opinions about the effect of the Green Revolution on wild biodiversity. One
hypothesis speculates that by increasing production per unit of land area, agriculture will not
need to expand into new, uncultivated areas to feed a growing human population [42]. However,
land degradation and soil nutrients depletion have forced farmers to clear up formerly forested
areas in order to keep up with production [43]. A counter-hypothesis speculates that biodiversity
was sacrificed because traditional systems of agriculture that were displaced sometimes
incorporated practices to preserve wild biodiversity, and because the Green Revolution expanded
agricultural development into new areas where it was once unprofitable or too arid. For example,
the development of wheat varieties tolerant to acid soil conditions with high aluminium content,
permitted the introduction of agriculture in the Amazonian Cerrado ecosystem in Brazil [42].
Nevertheless, the world community has clearly acknowledged the negative aspects of
agricultural expansion as the 1992 Rio Treaty, signed by 189 nations, has generated numerous
national Biodiversity Action Plans which assign significant biodiversity loss to agriculture's
expansion into new domains.
[edit] Health impact
The consumption of the chemicals and pesticides used to kill pests by humans in some cases may
be increasing the likelihood of cancer in some of the rural villages using them. Poor farming
practices including non-compliance to usage of masks and over-usage of the chemicals by un-
educated farmers in poor countries compound this situation.[44]
[edit] Pesticides and cancer
Long term exposure to pesticides such as organochlorines, creosote, and sulfallate have been
correlated with higher cancer rates and organochlorines DDT, chlordane, and lindane as tumor
promoters in animals[citation needed]. Contradictory epidemiologic studies in humans have linked
phenoxy acid herbicides or contaminants in them with soft tissue sarcoma (STS) and malignant
lymphoma, organochlorine insecticides with STS, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), leukemia,
and, less consistently, with cancers of the lung and breast, organophosphorous compounds with
NHL and leukemia, and triazine herbicides with ovarian cancer.[45][46]
