Question

What is the Green Revolution? What have been its limitations and its gains?

Short answer

The Green Revolution is a period of agricultural innovation focused on improving crop yield and food security. Gains from the Green Revolution included increased crop yield, enhanced food security, and improved health in developing nations. Limitations included environmental damage, population displacement, decreased biodiversity, and increased socioeconomic disparity.

Step-by-step solution

Definition

The Green Revolution refers to a set of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives that occurred between the 1960s and the late 1970s, effectively increasing agricultural production worldwide. This was achieved through the use of high-yielding crop varieties, modern machinery, irrigation infrastructure, and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

Gains

The Green Revolution had numerous successes. It increased agricultural production worldwide, improving food security and reducing starvation. This lead to an improvement in living standards, reduced malnutrition and improved overall health in developing countries. It also contributed to the transformation of many developing countries from food-deficit to food-surplus status.

Limitations

Despite the Green Revolution's success, it also had limitations which included environmental damage, socioeconomic disparity, malnutrition despite total caloric increase, unsustainable agricultural practices, and contribution to global warming. It led to a decrease in biodiversity by prioritizing high-yielding crops at the expense of local varieties, and created harmful off-site impacts by increasing fertilizer and pesticide runoff. Increased mechanization also led to job displacement in some communities.