Healthbeautyidea.com – Have You ever heard the term of “green revolution”? What does that mean? Revolution, but related to green? Is it related to nature? So as not to get confused, check out the following reviews.
The conflict between the countries that led to the outbreak of World War I and World War II was one of the reasons why the Green Revolution emerged. The war was the cause of the destruction of agricultural lands. These conditions make the world’s food supply deficit significantly.
What is Green Revolution?
The green revolution is an effort to develop agricultural technology in order to increase productivity in terms of food. This is driven by the growth of population figures that must also be accompanied by an increase in food.
The green revolution focused more on cereals or grain crops, such as wheat, rice, corn, and others.
In the green revolution, agriculture that was once traditional will be converted into agriculture with a system that uses the latest technology in order to be optimal. From this, it can be known that the purpose of the green revolution is actually also for the fulfillment of national economic industrialization.
With the green revolution, farmers’ dependence on weather and nature will decrease due to the improvement of science and technology.
Green Revolution background
The birth of the Green Revolution was motivated by various global conditions at that time, among others:
- Destruction of agricultural land due to World War I and World War II
- The rate of population growth that increased drastically so that food needs also increased
- Large amount of untapped vacant land
- Efforts to increase agricultural production.
Long before that, the Green Revolution was actually the brainchild of Thomas Robert Malthus’ research and writings in 1766-1834. He explained that the problem of poverty is an inevitable problem.
Thomas Robert Malthus was an economist and the originator of the British theory of population. Through his book entitled “Essay on the Principles of Population”, he stated that poverty is inevitable because population growth is not comparable to increasing agricultural production (food crops).
According to him, population growth runs according to the measuring series (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 and so on), while the increase in agricultural production runs according to the calculated series (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 and so on).
Thomas Robert Malthus’s writings managed to bring influence and give rise to several movements, namely:
- Movement to control population growth by controlling the birth rate
- Movement to find and research seedlings of superior crops in the agricultural sector
Positive impact of the Green Revolution
Rice and wheat production increased so that the fulfillment of food (carbohydrates) increased.
Negative impact of Green Revolution
The Negative Impacts of the Green Revolution include:
- The decrease in protein production, due to the development of cereals (as a source of carbohydrates) is not offset by the development of food sources of protein and farmland converted into rice fields.
- Decreased biodiversity.
- The continuous use of fertilizers leads to the dependence of plants on fertilizers.
- The use of pesticides leads to the appearance of new resistant strain pests.
Read also:
Global Environmental Issues and Causes
The green revolution, also received criticism from those who have an awareness of environmental sustainability because it has caused severe environmental damage. By those who supported the industrial revolution, they mentioned that the damage was not due to the industrial revolution, but because of access in the use of technology that did not look at the predetermined rules.
The green revolution was criticized in line with the increasing awareness of environmental sustainability because it resulted in severe environmental damage. By its proponents, the damage was seen not because of the Green Revolution, but because of excesses in the use of technology that did not look at predetermined rules.
In addition to the above criticism there is still another criticism that the Green Revolution could not reach all strata of developing countries because it had no real impact on the African region.