Comment: Adverse Environmental Consequences of the Green Revolution

Abstract

THE NEW AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGIES, energy inputs, and crop varieties that together are known as the Green Revolution are widely accepted as a resounding success in raising agricultural yields in much of the Third World. The Green Revolution seemingly banished what had been projected as imminent food shortages in many countries as populations continued to grow at annual rates of 2 to 3 percent. Optimists could envisage increases in yields continuing indefinitely, as agricultural production was put on a sound technological footing supported by a modern research and development infrastructure. Early fears of labor displacement were shown to be misplaced: the crop regime required as much or more labor as before. Implicit in such rosy scenarios, however, is the assumption that the Green Revolution does not have adverse side effects on the environment-on the immediate physical bases of production and on the broader physical setting in which the rural population lives. That assumption, we argue, is false. This comment briefly examines the environmental impacts of the Green Revolution and suggests that they call into question the long-run sustainability, let alone the long-run further growth, of high agricultural yields. In some instances they are potentially damaging to public health. We conclude that this technological route cannot be seen as an alternative to urgent action to stem population growth. Focused mainly on enhanced yield, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research that developed the crop plant improvement for the Green Revolution paid little or no attention to how this new technology would affect the quality of the environment (Baum, 1987). Pesticide use in Green Revolution rice production, for example, was reported to increase sevenfold over levels used in traditional rice production (Subramanian et al., 1973). Despite this increased use of insecticides there is no proof that losses due to insects in rice have been reduced; rather, at best such losses have