< Previous | Contents | Next >
2. Ecological Impact
The most devastating negative impact of the Green Revolution was ecological. When the issues related with it were raised by the media, scholars, experts and environmentalists, neither the governments nor the masses (what to say of the farmers of the GR region— they were not educated enough to understand the side effects of the inputs of the GR) were convinced. But a time came when the government and other government agencies started doing studies and surveys focused around the ecological and environmental issues. The major ones among them may be glanced in their chronological order:
(i) Critical Ecological Crisis: On the basis of on-field studies24 it was found that critical ecological crises in the GR region are showing up—
(a) Soil fertility being degraded: Due to the repetitive kind of cropping pattern being followed by the farmers as well as the excessive exploitation of the land; lack of a suitable crop combination and the crop intensity, etc.
(b) Water table falling down: As the new HYV seeds required
comparatively very high amount of water for irrigation—5 tonnes of water needed to produce 1 kg of rice.
(c) Environmental degradation: Due to excessive and uncontrolled use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides have degraded the environment by increasing pollution levels in land, water and air. In India it is more due to deforestation and extension of cultivation in ecologically fragile areas. At the same time, there is an excessive pressure of animals on forests—mainly by goats and sheeps.
(ii) Toxic Level in Food Chain: Toxic level in the food chain of India has increased to such a high level that nothing produced in India is fit for human consumption. Basically, unbridled use of chemical pesticides and weedicides and their industrial production combined together had polluted the land, water and air to such an alarmingly high level that the whole food chain had been a prey of high toxicity.
The above studies and the reports were eye-openers in the area of ecologically non-sustainable kind of agriculture as well as a big question mark on it. This was the time when agro-scientists suggested for a really ‘green’ (eco-friendly) revolution, which is today known among the experts with many more names—the evergreen revolution, the second; green revolution and green farming.