The Green Revolution in Asia Global Issues May 27, 1996 The Problem: With Asia's high and rapidly growing population, many people are going hungry. How can the world support these people? and how can these people feed themselves? What cost will this have on the environment? What are we doing to help these people? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Solution: The Green Revolution is a solution that has been at work since the 1960s. It developed new and better ways of producing food.Background of the Green Revolution: The Green Revolution began in the 1960s by the United States government. The Green Revolution was started to make wheat more adaptable to different environments. The grain has been genetically modified to grow with a shorter stock (to avoid wind damage) and the ability to grow faster so that colder climates can be sure the crop will have reached full growth before the season cold. Warmer climates could benefit from these faster growing varieties by achieving more than one or two harvests per season. Developing countries produced a lot of waste because of their cultivation techniques. They used large amounts of labor which produced waste, so the developed world had machines which they sent to underdeveloped countries to stop the waste. The production of new varieties of wheat led to the spread of the Green Revolution in Asia and the production of new varieties of rice. Positives of the Green Revolution: Since the start of the Green Revolution, nearly 5,000 new crop varieties have been developed. Seeds of crops such as wheat, rice, corn and cotton have been improved four to six times. Farmers have seen an increase in their yields of 50 to 130 percent. Wheat production is about 50 times higher than in the 1950s. The world's population is growing rapidly and this may be the only way the Earth can feed itself. Problems with the Green Revolution: The problems that have arisen are that people who need machines cannot afford to buy clothes, let alone pay for huge machines that have to be shipped from developed countries and whose Shipping costs must be paid. Even if farmers could afford to buy these machines, they would have to be taught how to use them properly. For example, it is impossible to find fuel, and the money to buy it, in the middle of Africa. The developed world produced the new varieties of wheat and rice. To genetically create a new food strain, a company or government must pay scientists (including agronomists, geneticists, biologists, chemists, nuclear scientists, spaceflight scientists), fund experiments, laboratories and hardware (to name a few). . Since the costs are very high, developing countries should pay a fair price for these new varieties. The money countries need to buy seeds and machines is borrowed from other countries. These loans do not help developing countries but plunge them, in most cases, into a deeper financial crisis. The environment is also paying the price of the revolution. New plant varieties use a lot of minerals from the soil and the soil they grow in is mistreated. The soil loses a large part of its minerals, so a way had to be found to replace them. Fertilizers,natural and chemical, must be used in large quantities to produce the special varieties. The chemicals seep into groundwater and pollute the water to the point that it is no longer drinkable. Many rivers and lakes, such as the Huang He River (see map of China) and the Ganges (see map of India), suffered the effects of this problem in the late 1960s, when fish and waterfowl began to die unexpectedly. Another problem with The Green Revolution was that new varieties, or modern cultivars, had begun to wipe out the original varieties that farmers had used for hundreds of years. The amount of different types of seeds began to rapidly disappear. Modern cultivars have a major flaw. The downside is that the varieties repel insects. Rice's ability to repel insects is a problem because the next generation of insects is able to combat this repulsion and new varieties must then be developed. If the new strains are not detected, then insecticides must be used, which also leach into groundwater and poison drinking water. New varieties must constantly be found to combat pests. The battle is never-ending, but it is very possible that the insects will win the battle and become immune to all types of insecticides. The Green Revolution in Asia: The countries that this report will examine are those of the growth of the green revolution. in China, India and a little in Viet Nam. Rice: Rice has been dated in Asia to 3000 BC, while rice began to be cultivated in the United States from around the 1640s, when a ship stopped while traveling to Madagascar left 5 kg of rice seeds. This launched the Carolina rice industry. The rice factory is figure #1. Rice is grown from the highlands to waterlogged fields. Figure 2 shows a mountain in the Philippines where rice is grown. Figure 3 shows Deepwater rice grown in Thailand. Rice pests and solutions: Every year, pests wreak havoc on rice production in Asia. About 31.5% of rice produced in Asia is destroyed by field and storage pests. Root eaters are termites and rice water weevils. They usually wreak havoc during a dry streak. The mature rice water weevil does not cause much damage to the plant, but its larvae feed on the roots, making the plant small, slow to grow and giving a low yield. Leafhoppers and planthoppers attack all parts of the plant to the point that the plant dies. A plant attacked by Hoppers appears to have been burned. The term “hopper burn” has been given to plants that have been attacked by these pests. An example of “hopper burn” is shown in Figure P0, the brown area is “burned” while the rest of the field is hopper resistant. They also carry rice diseases such as tungro virus which can kill an entire crop. The brown leafhopper, shown in Figure P1 where it is found, transmits the grass stunting virus. Other insects that destroy rice are stink bugs which remove the white liquid, called milk, from the rice. The Green Revolution relies heavily on insecticides. This approach may not be the right way to do things. Insecticides leach into groundwater and spoil drinking water, while insect repellent crops don't last long before new strains of insects appear. New methods, which are not very new, have been developed to combat pests and protectthe environment. Spiders live in rice fields all over the world. An important spider is the wolf spider which feeds on rice insects in all stages. The larvae are the wolf spider's main food source. A wolf spider can eat up to 45 larvae per day. The wolf spider is figure P2. Pathogens, which are groups of bacteria, fungi and viruses, also present a solution to the pest problem. Plants are sprayed with a fungus that is not harmful to humans. The pests begin to eat the plant and die. Figure P3 is a black bug infected with fungus. China: Figure 4 represents irrigated rice harvested by hand. Every two or three years, in China, a new variety of wheat arrives on the market. The main reason for the need for new varieties is the constant threat of insects that adapt to current varieties. Example of wheat production in China: 901 wheat increased its yield by 39.4%. Over the past 12 years, a hybrid developed by Yuan Longping has increased rice production by more than 240 million tons. Its new variety is expected to increase rice production by 20 to 30 percent. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said Yuan's work was "a contribution to humanity as a whole." In 1994, Chinese agricultural production doubled the annual total of a decade earlier. Region Harvested area (000 ha)China's population is expected to reach 1.3 billion by the year 2000. China will need to increase its grain production by 62.2 million tonnes per year over the next five years to to maintain the necessary 400 kg per year. person to maintain a moderate nutritional level. From 1985 to 1993, the average yield increased by only 54.6 million tonnes. At this rate, there will be a food shortage of 100 million tonnes by the year 2000. Population growth, which is 1.5%, has exceeded the increase in grain production, which is 1.5%. 34%. See Chart #1 for global rice production figures for 1994. Along with the grain deficit, farmland in China is shrinking at a rapid rate due to growing cities, desertification and erosion soils. China loses 540,000 hectares of agricultural land per year. Due to recent environmental awareness, the Chinese government has also declared that seven million hectares of land should be returned to the environment and preserved for forests and grasslands. Pollution is so bad in China that most satellites cannot take accurate photos of some major cities. To combat the coming food crisis, China has launched a seed project in which the government promotes the use of hybrid seeds, sponsors a seed bank and creates a seed market. This system will give rise to a chain seed industry by the end of the century that is expected to increase commodity crop yields by 10%. The system currently in place is China's first national plant variety bank, with more than 300,000 species preserved. It also has a group of scientists working to isolate the most promising strains. A Rice Center was also established, which cost the government 23 million yuan. There are no patent laws for varieties grown in China, so piracy and plagiarism have slowed new scientific developments. Some high-yielding seeds have been locked away in safes, while farmers continue to plant varieties from the 1970s. The government is getting involved in the green revolution because it..