Geography- Agriculture and the Green Revolution

An essay about agriculture and the effects of GM Food... This was done in secondary four, so it is definitely below IB standard

Qns:
i) Has the introduction of GM (genetically modified) food benefited humans?
aii) What is agro-technology?
bi) Define and explain the concept of traditional breeding in agriculture.
bii) Explain why agri-business is becoming more and more common today.
ci) Define and explain what the "Green Revolution" refers to.
cii) Evaluate the usefulness of the "Green Revolution".

i) No, I do not believe that genetically modified food has benefited the agricultural sector and the environment. Firstly, although genetically modified foods (GM foods) are currently considered safe to eat, and there have been no evidence of any adverse effects so far on people, its long-term effects are yet unknown, and might prove damaging to its consumers. Also, there might be a case where unintended effects of GM foods are placed into the GM crop, perhaps during experimentations or gene technology, rendering the crop undesirable and unsafe for consumption, which will not happen when crops are grown using traditional methods. Not to mention, GM foods might threaten biodiversity; in the case of losing a ‘pure’ strain of crop by adding genes to it, or having the side effect of mutating the gene of an animal which consumes the crop, we are possibly pushing a race to its extinction in this manner. Also, introducing a GM crop with resistance to, for example, fruit bats, would affect the delicate balance of the environment, and possibly starve the fruit bats in the area, this in turn leading to a proliferation of other pests, therefore it is disadvantageous to the environment. There is also the matter of harvesting the crop; introducing the concept of genetic modification has reduced competition from farmers who grow their crop in the traditional style and prevented them from purchasing GM seeds to grow their crops differently because the majority of them are poor and therefore unable to afford such a level a technology. This, in turn, creates a greater rich-poor divide in the agricultural economy and thus consolidating the power of multi-national corporations (MNCs) like Monsanto, who deal in GM crops. This monopoly which the MNCs hold adversely affects the agricultural economy.
On the other hand, GM crops are grown with less pesticides used as compared to normal crops, reducing damage to the environment, and also allowing a greater yield due to less damages incurred by pests, because of their inborn tolerance to pests. Facts have proven that 40% less pesticide is used in cases where BT cotton is grown. Also, present and future GM foods may have additional nutritional content, for example, soya bean with added vitamin A. This would allow the agricultural sector to have a more thriving economy due to greater demand for these foods.
However, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages since these biological advantages do not deliver certainty; therefore GM foods are not zero-risk and not its advantages are not necessarily proven in all areas like the addition of nutrition. As a result, it does not benefit the agricultural sector and the environment.

ii) Agro-technology has, on overall, forced people to invest more capital in the agricultural sector in exchange for added yield. Agro-technology also allows people to grow crops requiring a special climate under any conditions, and also increases the yield and efficiency with which the crop is produced. This also results in improved quality of the crop and less manpower needed to harvest and tend to these crops. However, this form of technology is expensive, and only the elite companies in the agricultural sector are able to afford this; therefore, the rich-poor divide in the agricultural sector is widened.

1bi) Traditional breeding focuses on crops with a special immunity to certain adverse effects, and crosses them with other crops which have other desirable effects, for example, producing a yield higher than the average crop. This careful selection of crops eventually (theoretically) results in a strain which is both resistant to pests and high yielding. However, one difference is that this method is extremely time consuming as compared to genetic modification.
Also, only closely related species can be successfully bred; therefore, if a species does not possess a resistance to a certain kind of insect or epidemic, the species as a whole cannot be protected against these effects.
GM food on the other hand, allows for gene transfer between virtually any plant or animal, thereby cancelling these limitations. Also, traditional breeding might bring some unwanted traits into the plant; for example, if a cabbage is resistant to pests, it might also taste bitter, the quality which discourages pests from consuming it. However, genetic modification targets specific genes and transfers only that effect across; in that sense, it has an overall advantage over traditional breeding, apart from being very expensive to perform.

ii) Agri-business is defined as the act of “farming engaged in as a large-scale business operation which utilizes modern science and technology to produce high yield through optimal performance”. This form of farming results in high yield through use of new technology in farming like High Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds and genetic modification to produce exceptionally abundant crops with preferred traits. However, this form of farming requires a high starting capital due to the fact that the required technology and machinery needs to be purchased.
Agri-business is becoming more and more popular because the turnover as compared to using traditional methods of farming is higher, and because crops grown through newer technology like genetic modification are now in higher demand as compared to traditional crops. The traditional method of farming also possesses many limits ; for example, if a farmer wanted to introduce a certain resistance-gene into a crop to reduce capital loss due to pests, the time it would take to breed such a crop through careful selection and cross-breeding would be very long (fifteen years, at least), whereas genetic modification, although expensive, allows for the farmer to transplant the gene into the crop almost immediately. There are also no added side effects as compared to natural breeding, where the crop might accidentally gain an unwanted trait in addition to resistance to pests (see example in question 1bi) above). Thus, agri-business is more desirable as compared to traditional breeding, and therefore there is a shift towards the agri-business sector.
Also, agri-business is now becoming more “trendy” in the business world of agriculture, and it is therefore in more demand by investors, who invest comparatively more in this sector as compared to crops grown using traditional methods. Farmers therefore capitalize on this and thus prefer to grow crops using agro-technology.
Finally, with the advent of agro-technology, new techniques have allowed the shelf life of agro-technologically grown food to be extended. It is therefore more desirable as compared to easily perishable crops, and this is extremely important as far as the world is concerned, because there is currently an increasing demand from the burgeoning population of the world to raise the current productivity of crops; therefore, agri-business is more popular in the agricultural business world not only because more crops can be produced, but also because these crops tend to survive when exported as compared to other crops which ripen and spoil easily (refer to tomatoes in Figure 1).
As a result, since agri-business produces more desirable crops, and a resulting higher capital for the farmer, more and more people are beginning to grow crops in this sector of business.

1c) The Green Revolution is the process of technologically modifying current agricultural techniques to increase the efficiency of crop growth, resulting in a higher productivity rate (especially in agricultural sectors in less developed countries). This is especially popular in poor countries where people are desperate for food, and there is, as a result, a higher demand for crops.
The Green Revolution first started out in Mexico under the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program, which aimed to find a solution to feed the starving population of third world countries through the cooperation of farmers in growing crops. The result was so successful in producing high-yielding crops which possessed resistances to natural elements that technologies used to grow these crops were exported abroad to assist farmers in meeting the food demands of their countries. In the end, more experimentation occurred, creating improved crop yield and other benefits.
The Green Revolution can currently be broken down into two smaller categories- the continued breeding and crossing of new plant varieties and the application of newer, modern technology into the agricultural sector (for example, genetic modification to boost a crop’s yield). The breeding of crops for various desirable traits has made much progress since the time the Green Revolution was introduced, and it has brought so many high yielding varieties (HYV) of crops that the majority of the public in industrialized companies now consumes these hybrid strains of crops as compared to traditionally grown crops. The breeding of new plant varieties now not only aims to increase crop yield, but also to increase shelf life, engineer resistances (against pests and herbicides) within the crop itself, and to help boost the appearance of the crop to make it more appealing.
The second category, introducing modern technology into agriculture, has helped greatly increase crop yield for farmers all over the world by introducing techniques which are now taken to be the standard for farmers delving into agri-business. Continued research into these techniques have come up with inventions like chemical fertilizer to allow any crop to grow in almost under any condition by providing the sufficient amount of nutrients for the crop, and the development of pesticides and herbicides to lower the loss of turnover by eliminating potential pests. Although with its drawbacks, pesticides have proven effective so far, with minimal crop loss and efficient weed control. Coupled with the introduction of heavy machinery to reduce labour required in harvesting the turnover, the Green Revolution has made much progress since its introduction into human society. Indeed, all these factors have helped prevent approximately one billion people in India from starving thus far, in addition to boosting India’s and Pakistan’s economy in the business of agriculture and securing its place in the world of agriculture for a long time to come.

ii) The Green Revolution has, in my opinion, greatly improved the lives of people throughout the world today. Firstly, its techniques have allowed food production to double and even triple in various third world countries, solving the problem of having people starve in these countries due to lack of food and achieving food security in developed countries as well as developing countries. In addition to this, the Green Revolution has helped to boost India’s economy by making it one of the world’s biggest agricultural producers.
However, the Green Revolution is also under fire for destroying the biodiversity and delicate balance of the environment by ensuring that less varieties of crops are grown in place of the HYV seeds, and this could also lead to herbicide-resistant weeds and other anomalies which are not normally found in nature. Also, there is an increased tendency for larger companies dealing in agri-business to monopolise the agricultural sector by selling sterile HYV seeds in order to gain revenue, resulting in farmers being forced to buy these sterile seeds from them again and again. Pollution also occurs in addition to dependence on fertilizers and the degradation of the natural fertility of the land due to possible run-off from pesticides and herbicides into oceans and lakes, resulting also in the lessened fertility of the land. This forces farmers to depend solely on fertilizers to ensure that crops grow well.
However, comparing the disadvantages and advantages of the Green Revolution, I feel that saving many human lives is a notable achievement, whereas many of these ‘disadvantages’ also apply to other large scale businesses in agriculture like the running of plantations, and is therefore not exclusive to the Green Revolution alone. I thus feel that the Green Revolution has drastically improved the lives of many people, and is therefore an advantage.