The Green Revolution

Tackling Hunger

The main hope of the Green Revolution was to be able to eliminate hunger from the world's poorest populations. Certainly this is a noble goal to work towards, but even still we are a long ways from reaching it. People in many developing countries are still starving, and the groups most affected by a lack of food are women and children. How can this still be the case if we are now able to generate so much more food than before the Green Revolution? Lets take a look at some of the factors involved which actually work against the hope of providing adequate life sustaining resources to everyone.

With the introduction of colonialism into many countries, the ability for local peoples to produce their food using traditional farming practices was severely limited. The colonizers decided that the most fertile lands that had provided the community with their food would instead be using to grow crops for export. With the best lands being used for production of exportable cash crops, this left a server shortage of food for the local population. Usually the farmers received very little or no retribution for their work.

Globalization and Free Trade agreements try to solve the problems introduced by the practices of colonialism, by paying farmers who participate in growing and exporting goods to the world market. The hope being that they will now generate a greater income which increases their buying power. As this line of reasoning goes, with the greater influx of capital these people will be able to afford access to basic life sustaining resources, such as food, water, and shelter. So instead of growing food for their families and community, they can grow cash crops to export for money which to then turn around and purchase the food they need to survive. Mean while the middle men, those that buy from the farmers and then sell to the market, are reaping the most benefits.

The proponents of the Green Revolution give examples of how much better off farmers can be in developing countries by utilizing new ways of farming. However what is often not mentioned is the higher costs associated with using these new practices. The poorest in developing countries can not afford to buy expensive machinery, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, nor can they afford to annually purchase genetically modified seeds that are programmed to generate sterile offspring.

So the net effect of the Green Revolution is that the poorest and most disadvantaged groups are still unable to provide for themselves due to a system that is flawed by design. Hunger is increasing as people are forced to grow crops for export to a volatile market place that determines what they should produce. Greater quantities of land are becoming under the control of the wealthy few, who can afford to hire laborers at menial wages. The small farmer is basically being driven to extinction under the great mechanized wheel of the Green Revolution. And all the while the rich profit from the suffering that they introduce to the lives of the poor.

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