Agricultural livelihood of green revolution of 1960s and 1970s
hoped to alleviate global hunger crises by improving seed qualities, farm
technology, better irrigation and chemical fertilisers, which subsequently
enabling developing nations to be self-sufficient. Regardless of the success of
greater food production, it is highly questionable whether the lower strata of
rural poor achieved greater food security or greater economic prosperity.
Parallel narrative like ‘we need new technology to end hunger’ in
recent years has prompted even bigger debate with genetically modified crops. Monsanto,
Novartis, AgrEvo, Dupont, Mycogen, American Home Products and other companies
who are reinventing themselves as biotechnology companies with the help of
international agencies having a global agenda to promote genetically modified
crops to alleviate global hunger. It has been thought by these multinational
companies that the second green revolution will save the world from hunger and
starvation with the help of magic seeds and plants produced by genetic
engineering techniques.
Before we get carried away, let us look at the facts. Proponents of
green revolution technology were understandably happy to take the credit that
in between 1970 to 1990 the total food available per person rose by 11 percent
and estimated number of hungry people fell from 942 million to 786 million, a
16 percent drop. However, these figures can give falls assumptions. Eliminating
China from this analysis showed that hungry people actually increased by more
than 11 percent, from 536 to 597 million (Rosset et al, 2000). In South America
per capita food supplies rose almost 8 percent but the number of hungry people
also went up to by 19 percent. Even in South Asia, there was 9 percent more
food per person by 1990, but there were also 9 percent more hungry people.
The agricultural progress that made green revolution possible did
not take any account on equal distribution (Wolf, 1986). New seeds, fertilisers
and pesticides boosted the crop yields and benefited those farmers who had the
access to irrigation system and markets for their crops. Subsistence farmers
remained vulnerable to crop failure, droughts, natural catastrophe and
diseases. Distribution of economic power especially access to land and
purchasing power was narrowly focused. It is still debateable if the poor did
benefit from the technology; many poor farmers gained nothing from new technology.
Indeed, they often lost (Jewitt, 2002). Farmers with ownership holdings larger
acres of land got better opportunities to invest on new seeds, fertilisers and
pesticides. Poor paid more and got less, as poor farmers could not buy
fertilisers and other inputs. Bigger growers aimed to buy large amounts and got
discounts. The relationship between small farmers and moneylenders became less
traditional and more commercial, and many farmers became indebted (Conway,
1997).
Even in the case of tube wells, larger farmers could afford the
initial investment and have lower costs per unit. The capital-intensive
agriculture strategy tends to increase disparities within small farmers. Use
of heavy machinery allowed a drastic reduction in the input of human labor.
Rural people’s livelihood were affected from the impacts of green revolution in
different ways; whether they were wage earners, cultivators or consumers,
whether they came from landed or landless, rich or poor, male or female headed
households. Final results had been massive displacement and loss of lands to
the bigger growers, increasing urbanization, poverty amongst small farmers.
Impacts of green revolution were felt not only on rural
livelihoods, poverty, politics and urban-rural relations but also ecological
impacts were immense. Fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide runoff became a major
source of water pollution. Green revolution allowed growing very fewer
varieties of crops which mean fewer verities of diet and nutrient values were
least than their ancestors. The introduction of green revolution staples into
regions that previously had hundreds of varieties of crops and replacement of
various nutrition sources, with a single green revolution alternative have led
to poor nutrition diets. With the green revolution, farming became fossil fuel
dependent. So the energy that must be expended to produce crops had also
increased at a greater rate. Critics had charged that the green revolution
destroyed soil quality over the long period by increasing soil salinity, heavy
use of chemical fertilizers, killing off beneficial soil microbes and other
organisms, erosion of the soil and loss of valuable trace elements.
However, the biotechnology revolution differs from the green
revolution in many aspects. Major aspects of agricultural biotechnology (so
called The Second Green Revolution) are to develop food crops and livestock as
well as enhancing the nutritional quality of foods (value-enhanced crops) and
reducing the need for toxic pesticides and herbicides. Research continues on
crop varieties, which are drought tolerance and will produce their own
fertilisers. Unlike the green revolution (classical or conventional plant
breeding practices) where food production were increased by improving seed
qualities, development of high-yielding varieties of staple crops, farm
technology, better irrigation and using chemical fertilisers. As Shiva, 1991
concluded that heavy use of fertiliser had led to degraded soil with falling
crop yields and polluted water sources during the green revolution. The new
technology so far relies on the same chemical approach. Therefore artificial
fertilizers continue to be used and pests are likely to become resistant to
genetically introduced toxins with the risk of creating "super bugs” – the
soil ecology is likely to be damaged (Bundell, 2004).
Like green revolution technology, agricultural biotechnology has
increased very sharply from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 11.0 million ha in
1997 and more than 28 million hectors in 1998 (Buttel, 1999). But despite of
the 15-fold increase in GMO crop area from 1996 to 1998, crop biotechnology is
still fairly limited in scope (Buttel, 1999). Will the agricultural
biotechnology revolution alleviate global hunger as it was said in the case of
green revolution? The answer is not very simplistic or evidential because the
technology is still advancing and yet to be implemented in many countries in
the world, particularly in those countries where there is more hunger. Whatever
rewards it brings for humanity but its benefits are accompanied by controversy
and not without problems. Scientific uncertainty, conflicting government
priorities, lack of coordination among legislative bodies and the absence of
civil penalty system have undermined the level of environmental protection
conferred by GMO regulation. There are so many questions yet to be answered for
example, do we need the product? Do we want the product? How does the product
affect us?
Private sectors are dominant for developing, promoting and
commercialising of the genetic engineered varieties, whereas public and
non-profit sectors played the predominant role during the green revolution. The
process of new biotechnology is not very cheap. GMO technology has motivated a
number of mergers and takeovers between seed and chemical companies because
biotechnology requires considerable investment; the companies have attempted to
exercise exceptional control over the processes, genes, and chemicals (Tripp,
1999). For example, the top 10-agrochemical companies control 85 per cent of
the global agrochemical market; the top five control virtually the entire
market for GM seeds. Concentration of ownership within the industry is
increasing. If the new technology remains in the hand of big corporations then
it will continue to reliance on external inputs, concentrate on ownership of
land and resources. This will further widen the gap between poor and rich. GM
technology does not address this fundamental issue of inequality of access. For
example, ‘terminator technology’ or ‘the suicide seed’ will prevent farmers
from saving seed for their next planting and force them to buy new seeds each
year or to buy the proprietary chemicals needed to make the seeds germinate
(Bundell, 2004).
Three distinct techniques such as tissue cultures, molecular
markers and transgenic crops are classified as biotechnology, differing in
costs and perceived risks (Byerlee and Gregory, 1999). Transgenic crops are
controversial because of concerns of science, potential impacts on environment
and human health and concerns about the structure of the transgenic crop
industries. Growing number of biotechnology companies are trying to push
forward their agenda through the government policies, USA is a good example in
this regard and having trade difficulties with European Union (EU). There are
conflicting regulatory approaches between EU and US, which make the whole GMO
issues very controversial. The biotechnology dispute had the characteristics of
a high-tech industrial dispute and this dispute had the potential to damage
other countries.
Genes with specific characteristics are directly transported
in the plant cells, which can be called as transgenic plants. Two well
known agricultural biotechnology's first generation of products are Bt
corn and herbicide resistance soybeans. Even though the success in USA,
questions are always arising the capacity of existing regulatory
approaches and institutions to address issues related to safety in
biotechnology. It is vitally important worldwide efforts to develop and
apply appropriate strategies and safety assessment criteria for GMO
research and to ensure the wholecomeness and safety of its supply (FAO
and WHO, 1997).
Regulatory response is not straightforward; it is as complex
as GMOs. There should be provision of science-based mechanisms by which
choices of acceptance can be made (Serageldin and Collins, 1999). For
example, what magnitude of risk is acceptable by the government in
accepting the technology? What are the likely outcomes in high-risk
situations? What additional risks such as, opportunity costs and direct
costs do face an individual firm?What risk do consumers face in chossing
the product and how do they recognise those individual risks?
Regulation in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) remains a controversial
topic. In Europe particularly, the law says that you cannot patent
discoveries, you can only patent inventions (Serageldin and Collins, 1999). Genes are
discoveries, therefore they cannot be patented. This argument does not
apply in America because the law is differently phrased. An invention is
defined as an invention or discovery (Serageldin and Collins, 1999).
But why these safety assessments are important? Because the sources
of DNA are virtually coming from animal, plant, microbial or synthetic. They
can mutate in response to environmental influences and thus may disturb the
ecological balance. Therefore, “Genetically modified organisms must not be
released into the environment as the consequences for the environment and the
evolution are unpredictable and irreversible” (Anderson, 1999). These
modern techniques solely differ from the green revolution technology.
In the green revolution technologies farmers required to have the
knowledge about how to combine the seeds, chemical fertilisers and irrigations
but in the case of agricultural biotechnology farmers are facing uncertainties
about the impacts. Educated and rich farmers can build up their adaptive
capacity quickly than poorer farmers against uncertainties (Feder et al, 1982).
Foster and Rosenzweig (1986) find that the return to schooling in India rose
when green revolution varieties were introduced and that educated farmers were
more benefited than uneducated farmers. Farmer’s learning will probably
concentrate on knowing the plant-insect varieties instead of how much
insecticide needs to be used (de Janvry et al, 1999). The major issues will be
what crops should be developed and how the poor farmers will have access to
those crops.
Regulatory concerns in developing countries are growing more and
more because pressures will be applied from both domestic and foreign sources;
these will include the interest of plant breeders, agriculture input and
commodity firms and a range of political and advocacy groups (Tripp, 1999). To
take regulatory decisions about GMOs require high quality of technical
information about environmental interactions. This information is costly to
acquire and most developing countries do not have adequate resources for this
purposes. External funding is required to support environmental studies, as
well as for the broader concerns of biodiversity conservation (Tripp, 1999).
Strict regulations in some of the industrialised countries on the release of
GMOs or products might encourage some biotechnology industries to conduct their
experiment in developing countries without government knowledge or approval,
because of lack of regulation, technical information and public accountability
(Serageldin and Collins, 1999). Therefore, regulatory authorities of those
countries are increasingly facing the new challenges.
Promises of green revolution were to alleviate global hunger,
increasing global carrying capacity with increased yields, increasing
technological knowledge and reaching the materials to the rural farmers.
Primary objective of green revolution was a successful one but it did not
alleviate the global hunger. It is claimed that lessons have learned from green
revolution experiences. It is believed that hunger is not caused by a shortage
of food and cannot be eliminated by producing more foods. Introducing any new
agricultural technology into a social system without addressing the social
questions of access to and who gets the benefits from it is a fundamental
question. Without a strategy of addressing these issues of powerlessness of the
poor, the tragic result will be more food and yet more hunger. Dubious benefits
to the poor and potential risks associated with the second green revolution unfortunately
will not end the hunger.
