BIOTECHNOLOGY AND GREEN REVOLUTION

Biotechnology and Green Revolution

Biotechnology and Green Revolution

Introduction

Green revolution techniques introduced from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s generated no less than an agricultural explosion in those areas where they were fully applied. This, however, is where agreement ends. In terms of environmental consequences, the green revolution has garnered severe criticism. Censure has typically come from those who argue that the successes of HYVs are only realizable when all requisites—namely, intensive synthetic fertilizer and pesticide application, optimal irrigation levels, and agricultural monoculture (the practice of growing a single crop variety over a large area)—are met. In the same way, sceptical observers have drawn attention to the newly introduced farming techniques and accompanying environmental risks. Soils were argued to become “addicted” to synthetic fertilizers, requiring higher and increasingly recurrent doses. Such intensive fertilizer use was shown in many cases to result in nitration (the harmful reaction between nitric acid and an organic compound) and the eutrophication of local bodies of freshwater (in which abnormally high weed and algal growth, caused by an enrichment of nutrition levels from heavy chemical use, eventually dissipates the oxygen levels of the affected area) and had predictably harmful effects on natural ecosystems and the wider rural population.

Likewise, the loss of indigenous varieties, particularly of wheat, has provoked condemnation from proponents of biodiversity. Certainly, figures show that in China, for example, between 1964 and 1970, numbers of unique wheat varieties plummeted to approximately 10 percent of the country's original total. Critics of this departure from natural genetic miscellany argued that advocates of the increases in grain production had not taken into account the loss of the vital secondary outputs cultivated in traditional mixed crops, such as husk for fuel and straw for building and livestock feed, all of which are reduced in HYVs.

Agricultural biotechnology is the application of modern biotechnology techniques, particularly recombinant DNA (rDNA) gene splicing, for developing new varieties of food crops and animals with useful genetic traits. In the mid-1990s, the introduction of the first genetically modified (GM) food crops launched a major global controversy that continues today. In the United States, many farmers grow GM crops, and an estimated 75% of the processed food products contain ingredients from GM crops. In Europe, however, there is strong public opposition to GM foods and crops based on concerns about safety, environmental impacts, the lack of benefits, and moral and ethical issues. In addition, the European Union (EU) has adopted much stricter regulations on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and relatively few have been approved.

Numerous studies have sought to explain the apparent divergence of U.S. and European public opinion about GM foods and crops. Studies have examined the effects of the European media's more extensive coverage of the biotechnology controversy, including greater attention to biotechnology opponents. While the difference in media coverage and focus may account for some of the difference between the European and U.S. responses, studies show that other factors are also likely to be relevant and that public opinion on both sides ...