From the Green Revolution to the Evergreen Revolution

article by Lazzarotto Anaïs and Fourt Enola

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 The Green Revolution is the increase of the agricultural yields in a country caused by a progress in agriculture between 1960 and 1990. This progress was brought by the use of GMOs, massive irrigation, intrants and fertilizers. Even if it has major advantages such as allowing countries to become self-sufficient, it still has important drawbacks that we can ‘t ignore, as the pollution and the exhaustion of grounds and water, or the destruction of environment. In this article, we will especially get interested in the Indian Green Revolution. We will also study what is the Evergreen Revolution.

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THE INDIAN GREEN REVOLUTION

• The Green Revolution in India refears to a period that began in the 1960’s when the agricultural yields of India increased strongly because of the use of inputs and fertilizers,  massive irrigation and GMO crops, added to the introduction of the latest agricultural techniques.

•The State of India came to the decision to collaborate with the chimical firms that furnish inputs and GMOs to help the country becoming self-sufficient, and stop alimentary insecurity. This decision worked because the yields of Indian agriculture had greatly increased, but the progress in agriculture brought with it the major drawbacks of the Green Revolution.  

The Advantages

 • The Green Revolution is a real advance for Indians, it reduces starvation and helps farmers gain more incomes. 

•  The country became auto-sufficient thanks to it so India isn’t dependent on other countries to import its food anymore. Indian can feed its population with its own production.

• GMOs brought by the Green Revolution  can be grown more easily by farmers as they less undergo the damages caused by wind, diseases or insects, and they produce bigger productions. Add on, GMOs  can produce more than regular crops on the same plot of land.

•  The Green Revolution had multiplied the number of crops throughout the year : instead of one crop in the year, one or two more crops can be grown on the same soil. This phenomenon is called the multiple cropping.

• The increase of agricultural yields led to lower prices on markets and reduction of production costs : food is more accessible to Indians.

Source :http://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/Africa-needs-green-revolution.-530x298.jpg

The Drawbacks

•  The Green Revolution causes an agriculture that is way too intensive, the monoculture and the inputs exhaust and pollute the ground.

• The massive irrigation dry out the ground water, and lead to salinization ( so to the destruction) of the soils.

• The pesticides cause pollution and erosion of the ground.

• The intensive agriculture, and especially its mechanization, consummate a lot of energy.

• One of the consequences of the Green Revolution is the destruction of the biodiversity.

• An augmentation of diseases passed by mosquitos.

• The Green Revolution causes deforestation : as grounds are more and more exhausted, farmers need other lands to grow their seeds on, so they clear of trees to make new cultivable lands.

• The Green Revolution contribute to global warming.

Because of all of this, the threat of alimentary insecurity risks to come back : if all the Indian grounds get exhausted, the country will not be able to produce its own food anymore.

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THE EVERGREEN REVOLUTION

• The Evergreen Revolution is an agricultural and ecological revolution that has as main objective increasing even more the yields of Indian agriculture, but thanks to ecological agriculture and green technologies, which would avoid ecological and social damages. It would help India becoming one of the world’s food supplier and consequently increase economical yields of the country. There are other advantages like helping increase the small producer’s incomes, or reducing pollution caused by inputs. It would also limit the consommation of ressources such as water, and the exhaustion of grounds caused by massive irrigation.

• The Evergreen revolution only commercializes on local markets products from small Indian farmers ; no inputs are used as the crops are ecological and there isn’t only one variety of agricultural product by crop. The green crops promoted by Evergreen Revolution make good use of ecosystems itselves : using additonal plants helps preserving nutrients from the ground to avoid it being exhausted. Add on, these agricultural crops only use the strict quantity of water necessary for the plants, it helps preserving the ground water.

• The main difficulty for the Evergreen Revolution is to produce as much as the regular crops on which we use fertilizers, inputs and irrigation, without all of this and the minimum of water. It is also a problem to persuade farmers to forsake inputs, pesticides and irrigation to try a brand new agricultural technique.

• The Evergreen Revolution is a solution for durable agricultural prosperity, but it will be hard to put in place.

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• Links to related sites

◘ http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-the-green-revolution-definition-benefits-and-issues.html 

◘ http://english.manoramaonline.com/news/columns/straight-talk/india-needs-an-evergreen-revolution.html

◘ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

◘  http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Green_Revolution.aspx