The Green Revolution in Asia World Issues May 27, 1996 The Problem: With Asia's high and rapid population growth, many people are going hungry. How can the world support these people?; and how can these people feed themselves? What cost will all this have on the environment? What is being done to help these people. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The Solution: The Green Revolution is a solution that has been in place since the 1960s. He developed new and better ways to produce 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. Wheat was genetically modified to grow with a shorter stock (to stop wind damage) and the ability to grow faster so that colder climates could ensure the crop was fully grown by the cold season. Warmer climates might benefit from these faster-growing varieties by having more than one or two crops per season. Developing countries produced a lot of waste through their farming techniques. They used large amounts of labor to produce waste, so the developed world had machinery that they sent to the underdeveloped ones to stop the waste. The production of new varieties of wheat led to the green revolution that spread to Asia and the production of new varieties of rice. Positive aspects of the Green Revolution: Since the beginning of the Green Revolution, almost 5000 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 a 50 to 130 percent increase in yield. Wheat production is about 50 times higher than it was in the 1950s. The world's population is increasing rapidly and this may be the only way for the earth to feed itself. Problems with the Green Revolution: The problems that have occurred are that people who need the machinery cannot afford to buy clothes let alone pay for huge machinery that has to be shipped from developed countries and the shipping has to be paid for. Even if farmers could afford machinery, they would need to be taught how to use it properly. Finding fuel and the money to buy it in the middle of Africa, for example, is impossible. The developed world has produced new varieties of wheat and rice. To genetically engineer a new strain of food, a company or government must pay scientists (including agronomists, geneticists, biologists, chemists, nuclear scientists, space flight scientists), fund experiments, laboratory space, and materials (just to name some) . The costs are very high, so developing countries should pay a fair price for these new varieties. The money that countries need to pay for seeds and machinery is borrowed from other countries. This indebtedness does not help developing countries but throws them, in most cases, into a deeper financial crisis. The environment also pays the price of the revolution. New plant varieties use a lot of minerals from the soil, and the soil they grow in is exploited. The soil loses much 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 special varieties. The chemicals seep into the aquifers and pollute the water to the point that it is no longer drinkable. Many rivers and lakes such as the Huang He River (refer tomap of China) and the Ganges River (refer to map of India) saw the effects of this problem in the late 1960s, when fish and waterfowl began dying unexpectedly. the Green Revolution was that new varieties, or modern cultivars, had begun to drive out the original varieties that farmers had been using for hundreds of years. The quantity of different types of seeds began to increase rapidlydisappear. Modern cultivars have a major flaw. The flaw is that the insect-repellent varieties. Rice's ability to repel insects is a problem because the next generation of insects will be able to combat this repellency and therefore new strains will need to be developed. If the new strains are not found it is necessary to use insecticides which also penetrate the aquifers and poison drinking water. It is necessary to constantly find new varieties to combat pests. The battle never ends, but it is quite possible that insects will win the battle and become immune to all types of insecticides. The Green Revolution in Asia: The countries that this report will look at are the growth of the Green Revolution in China, India and a little from Vietnam. Rice: Rice has been dated in Asia to 3000 BC while rice began to be cultivated in the United States around 1640 when a ship that stopped while en route to Madagascar left 5 kg of rice seeds. This began the Carolina rice industry. The rice plant is figure no. 1. Rice is grown from highlands to waterlogged fields. Figure no. 2 is a mountain in the Philippines where rice is grown. Figure no. 3 shows deep-sea rice grown in Thailand. Rice Pests and Solutions: Pests negatively impact rice production in Asia every year. About 31.5% of the rice produced in Asia is carried away by pests in the fields and even in warehouses. Root eaters include termites and rice water weevils. They usually charge during a series of dry spells. The mature rice weevil does not cause much damage to the plant, but its larvae feed on the roots, making the plant small, slow to develop and have a low yield. Leafhoppers and leafhoppers attack all parts of the plant to the point that the plant dies. A plant that was attacked by the 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 resistant to the hopper. They also carry rice diseases such as tungro virus that can kill an entire crop. The brown leafhopper, shown in Figure P1 where it can be found, transmits grass stunt virus. Other insects that destroy rice include stink bugs that remove the white fluid, known as milk, from rice. The Green Revolution relies heavily on insecticides. This approach may not be the correct way to do things. Insecticides seep into groundwater and ruin drinking water, while insect-repellent crops don't last long before new strains of insects arrive. New methods, which are not entirely new, have been developed to deal with pests and protect the environment. Spiders live in all the rice fields of the world. An important spider is the wolf spider which feeds on all stages of rice insects. Hoppers are the wolf spider's main food source. A wolf spider can eat up to 45 hoppers a day. The wolf spider is figure P2. Pathogens, which are bacteria, fungi and groups of viruses, also represent a solution to the parasite problem. The plants are sprayed with a fungus that is not harmful to humans. THEparasites begin to eat the plant and die. Figure P3 is a black insect infected with a fungus. China: figure no. 4 shows hand-harvested irrigated rice. Every two or three years a new variety of wheat comes onto the market in China. The main reason for the need for new strains is the constant threat of insects that adapt to current varieties. Example of wheat production in China: Wheat-901 increased 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 latest strain is expected to increase rice production by 20-30%. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Yuan's work is "a contribution to humanity as a whole." In 1994, China's agricultural production doubled its annual total from a decade earlier. Region Harvested area (000 hectares) China's population is expected to increase to 1.3 billion by 2000. China will need to increase grain production by 62.2 million tons per year over the next five years to maintain the 400 kg needed per person to maintain a moderate nutritional level. From 1985 to 1993 the average yield increased by only 54.6 million tons. At this rate there will be a food shortage of 100 million tons by 2000. Population growth, which is 1.5%, has exceeded the increase in grain production, which is 1.34%. View graph no. 1 for world rice production numbers in 1994. To address grain shortages, agricultural land in China is shrinking at an enormous rate due to city growth, desertification and soil erosion. China loses 540,000 hectares of agricultural land per year. Due to recent environmental awareness, the Chinese government has also stated that seven million hectares of land must be returned to the environment and preserved for forests and grasslands. Pollution in China is so bad that most satellites are unable to capture accurate images of some large cities. To combat the looming food crisis, China has initiated 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 result in a chain seed industry by the end of the century that is expected to increase staple yields by 10%. The system currently in place is the first national crop variety bank in China and has over 300,000 preserved species. It also has a team of scientists working to isolate the most promising strains. A Rice Center was also set up which cost the government 23 million yuan. There are no patent laws for plant varieties in China, so piracy and plagiarism have slowed down new scientific developments. Some high-yielding seeds have been locked away, while farmers are still planting varieties dating back to the 1970s. The government is involved in the green revolution because it knows that it will have to pay a lot of money for grain imports. The government also believes that the seed production business is profitable in China, Zhongnong Seed Corporation has consolidated 52 seed marketing companies and five research institutes and was established in January 1996. Education is an important key to helping to produce enough food for China. The Ministry of Agriculture has established a farmer education program that will educate 8 million farmers by 2010. At present, the education and technical assistance established by the government reaches only 2% of the agricultural population. By 2010, only farmers who pass a standard exam will receive a "green certificate" which will allow farmers who.