Green Revolution and GMOs
hurray
What were the causes and results of the Bengal Famine in 1943?
World War 2 caused great hysteria for everybody, and that included India, which was ruled by Britain. They depended on Britain for food, but after World War 2 there was no food for anybody, leaving India food deprived. When Britain let India become its own country in 1947, the grieving was not put to waste, and propelled the new government to start working on food supply, creating the Green Revolution.
3 basic elements of the Green Revolution in India:
- Continued expansion of farming land
- Double-cropping existing farmland, or raising 2 kinds of crops on the same farmland
- Using seeds with improved genetics, which are genetically raised to be more beneficial to humans
2 positive results of the Green Revolution in India:
People got fed, and to the point that India got established as one of the world's biggest agricultural producers.
It also created lots of jobs for people in the agricultural business, as well as related jobs like factories and hydroelectric power stations.
3 positive economic/sociologic/political results of the Green Revolution in India
- Created motivation for farmers, and made more jobs.
- India paid back all loans from the World Bank and its affiliates for the purpose of the Green Revolution, making it very creditworthiness in the eyes of possible lending agencies.
- India transformed itself into a starving nation into an exporter of foods.
2 limitations of the Green Revolution in India
The Green Revolution cannot be 100% successful, because there they couldn't raise all kinds of crops like they wanted, but only in successful places such as Punjab and Haryana.
Starvation is still among the people however, and they are out of reach of the government, with the problems being other than food availability.
GMO Positives and Negatives
Positives:
- Tastes "better"
- Environmentally friendly by conserving water, soil, and energy.
- Takes up less farmland, and can grow more food on less land
- Increased nutrients, and can be modified to be healthier
- Animals have higher resistance to disease, with better waste management.
Negatives
- Nobody knows what effects they could possibly have
- They may cause allergies unknowingly
- GM farmers use more chemicals, knowing it may get into the soil and damage the ground. Overuse of these chemicals create superweeds, causing the farmers to use even more toxic chemicals
- GMOs can cross pollinate and spreads seeds quickly, and contaminate other natural non-GM plantations.
- It reduces bio-diversity, and pollutes water, and are unsustainable. GM crops are decreasing populations for monarch butterflies, which are down 50%.
- Herbicide is shown to cause birth defects in frogs!!!