Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
from 2,063 to 2,798 per person. Huge famines had been pre-
dicted in the second half of the twentieth century, but thanks
to Borlaug the only famines were caused by politics (as in
China). So influential was he in helping to feed a growing
population that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 1970.
If they lived just one month amid the misery of the devel-
oping world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out
for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be
outraged that fashionable elitists in wealthy nations were
trying to deny them these things.
—Norman Borlaug, responding to those who criticized
him for espousing the use of modern agricultural
technologies, quoted in Gregg Easterbrook,
“The Man Who Defused the 'Population Bomb,' ”
Wall Street Journal
, September 16, 2009, A27.
From the modern world's perspective, the positive devel-
opments in Guatemalan agriculture are no surprise. What is
surprising is that it took so long for the Green Revolution to
reach Guatemala.
Is the miracle of chemical fertilizers too good to be true?
Some think so. While they do not deny the ability of chemi-
cal fertilizers to improve agricultural productivity in the
short run, they argue the long-run view is not so optimistic.
Critics also argue that chemical fertilizers lead to pollution
and encourage the growth of large corporations, and for some,
large corporations are themselves a problem. These are the
controversies we will now explore.
Do Chemical Fertilizers Enhance Soil Fertility?
The obvious answer seems to be yes. Why else would farm-
ers use them? As farmers harvest wheat, corn, and other crops,
they are taking from the land all the elements within that
