HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 17

could be so fundamentally at odds with natural processes that it must be curtailed.
Conservation had never raised much broad public interest, as few people really
worried about the disappearance of wilderness. But the threats Carson outlined - the
contamination of the food chain, cancer, genetic damage, the deaths of entire species
- were too frightening to ignore. For the first time, the need to regulate industry in
order to protect the environment became widely accepted, and environmentalism
was born.
Criticism of the Green Revolution
Following initial enthusiasm about the 'magic' of the Green Revolution, that had
resulted in substantial increases in food production, especially in developing countries
and, thus, reduced the risks of widespread famine, critical notes were gradually
developing.
The scale issue - Early evidence from India suggested that small-scale farmers were
not adopting Green Revolution seeds (HYVs), because (i) seeds are part of a
'package' of inputs (fertilizer, irrigation, pesticides, mechanization), that is more
accessible to larger farms; (ii) lack of information and knowledge, i.e., extension
agents usually work with large farms; (iii) insufficient credit availability, i.e., banks
don't lend to peasants; (iv) minimum size needed for some inputs, especially pumps
and tractors; (v) lower price for produce because of higher yields would hurt small
farmers.
Technological treadmill - Pre-Green Revolution agriculture is in fact more efficient,
although lower-yielding. The real change in the Green Revolution is in fertilizer use.
Green Revolution requires farmers to loose control of their productive system and to
become dependent on outside sources of energy.
Food insecurity increased - The Green Revolution technology is a less stable and
riskier strategy and poor farmers are exposed to greater dangers of crop failure and
hunger with HYVs than with local technology. Causes of instability: (i) genetic
vulnerability - danger of susceptibility to diseases, pests, or weather is increased by
replacing heterogeneous crops with monocrops and single varieties; (ii) market inte-
gration means that farmers in different places tend to respond to the same 'signals'
in the economy to increase or decrease production; (iii) higher mean yields naturally
have larger standard deviations.
Ecological problems - Agricultural intensification with Green Revolution technology
leads to negative ecological consequences. The main reasons are: (i) use of chemicals
(fertilizers and pesticides) pollutes the environment and harms wildlife; (ii) use of
HYVs eliminates landraces, causing genetic erosion and genetic vulnerability;
(iii) agricultural intensification leads to soil degradation (salinization, acidification).
In response to these criticisms, science developed a number of new foci (Mann
1997): (1) Methods to increase participation by small farms in Green Revolution