Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Green/Gene Revolution
- The challenge of feeding increasing numbers of people in the developing world has been the target of large-scale technological fixes
- The green revolution of the 1960s and the Gene Revolution of the 1990s both sought to bring about a dramatic rise in food production
- Developing world farmers were encouraged to leapfrog from centuries-old farming systems into a high-tech world
- Green Revolution
- In the green revolution high-yielding varieties of crops such as rice and wheat were selectively bred (hybridised) from thousands of varieties to increase yields.
- In order to achieve maximum yields a new farming system involving fertilisers, irrigation and pesticides had to be adopted
- Research institutes such as the international rice research institute, funded by donors such as the Ford, Rockefeller and gates foundations
- The first crop, a rice varitety known as IR8, was dubbed 'miracle rice'. Other varieties replaced IR8 as it was found to succumb to diseases and pests
- HYV rice is grown
extensively in Asia.
- HYV wheat is grown in Latin America.
- Very few HYV crops have succeeded in Africa
- Rapid-growing varieties of rice allow two crops per year, with yields up to 10 times those for traditional rice
- HYVs are now bred to be resistant to pests and diseases such as the stem borer and blast disease
- HYV rice allowed India to become self-sufficient in rice by 1980
- Yields of
wheat, rice
and maize
grew by over
2% per year
between 1967
and 1996
- Although yield growth slowed to 1-1/5% between 1997 and 2006
- Gene Revolution
- The gene revolution is
based on genetically
modified varieties of
cotton, rice, maize and
soybean
- The DNS of the crop is altered by genetic engineering to
produce new characteristics such as tolerance to drought and
resistance to pesticides, herbicides and pests
- The two revolutions involved different technologies, and also have different origins and geographies