Page 55 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

874 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

best seen as a symptom of broader dietary deficiencies themselves or vaccines against malaria and cholera.Those
caused by a change from diverse cropping systems to rice people who promote LISA endorse agroecology, which
monoculture: Indian children have vitamin A deficiency entails grassroots efforts by small farmers and scientists to
because their diet has been reduced to rice and little else. meld traditional and modern farming methods, to reduce
Under a mixed agricultural regime, Indian farmers grew pesticide and chemical fertilizer use, to select natural
brathua, a traditional plant rich in Vitamin A, along with seed varieties suited to different soils and climates, to end
their wheat, but in GR monocultures brathua is regarded monoculture and export orientation, and to use science
as a pest and is destroyed with herbicides. to enhance natural ecological systems of agricultural pro-
In reaction to the myriad problems caused by the duction and protection. The choices that people make
Green Revolution,an alternative agriculture called“LISA” during the next twenty years will shape not only the kinds
(low-input sustainable agriculture) emerged in the United and amounts of foods that people will have available to
States, Cuba, western Europe, and elsewhere during the eat but also the ecological health of the planet itself.
last thirty years. It seeks to promote ecological sustain-
Alexander M. Zukas
ability in farm production by replacing dependence on
heavy farm machinery and chemical inputs with animal See also Agricultural Societies
traction, crop and pasture rotations, soil conservation, or-
ganic soil amendments, biological pest control, and mi-
Further Reading
crobial biofertilizers and biopesticides that are not toxic
Altieri, M. A., & Rosset, P. (1996). Comment and reply: Strengthening
to humans. A carefully watched experiment with LISA is the case for why biotechnology will not help the developing world: A
occurring in Cuba, where the end of Soviet pesticide and response to McGloughlin. AgBioForum:The Journal of Agrobiotechnol-
ogy Management & Economics, 2(3–4),14.Retrieved January 22,2004,
petroleum subsidies in 1991 led to the collapse of GR-
from http://www.agbioforum.org/v2n34/v2n34a14-altieri.htm
based food production and near famine from 1991 to Environmental Health Fund and Strategic Counsel on Corporate
1995. In 1993 the Cuban government began breaking Accountability. (1999). Beyond the chemical century: Restoring human
rights and preserving the fabric of life: A report to commemorate the
up large state farms, changed land tenure toward coop- 15th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster December 3, 1999. Retrieved
eratives (now 70 percent of all agricultural land), and re- January 22, 2004, from http://home.earthlink.net/~gnproject/chem-
century.htm
placed the Soviet Green Revolution model with the LISA
Evenson, R. E., Santaniello,V., & Zilberman, D. (2002). Economic and
model on a national scale. By 1995 food shortages were social issues in agricultural biotechnology. NewYork: CABI Publishing.
overcome. During the 1996–1997 growing season Cuba Foster, J. B. (2001). The vulnerable planet:A short economic history of the
environment. New York: Monthly Review Press.
recorded its highest-ever production levels for ten of the Funes, F., Garcia, L., Bourque, M., Perez, N., & Rosset, P. (2002). Sus-
thirteen basic food items in the Cuban diet, and the re- tainable agriculture and resistance: Transforming food production in
Cuba. Oakland, CA: Food First Books.
sults keep improving.
Ganguly, S. (1998). From the Bengal famine to the Green Revolution.
Retrieved January 22, 2004, from http://www.indiaonestop.com/
Implications and Greenrevolution.htm
Greenpeace. (2002). The real Green Revolution—Organic and agroeco-
Directions logical farming in the South. Retrieved January 22,2004,from http://
The Green Revolution has fervent admirers and detrac- archive.greenpeace.org/geneng/highlights/hunger/greenrev.htm
Hughes, J. D. (2001). An environmental history of the world: Human-
tors. Admirers who wish to mitigate its worst effects are
kind’s changing role in the community of life. London: Routledge.
promoting the Gene Revolution, which combines specific Lappe, F. M., Collins, J., & Rosset, P. (1998) World hunger:Twelve myths
genes (and their desirable traits) among unrelated species (2nd ed.). New York: Grove Press and Earthscan.
Leff, E. (1995). Green production: Toward an environmental rationality.
to yield plants with novel traits that cannot be produced New York: Guilford.
by farmers practicing traditional breeding. The result is McGloughlin, M. (1999).Ten reasons why biotechnology will be impor-
tant to the developing world.AgBioForum:The Journal ofAgrobiotech-
the engineering of “transgenic” crops such as rice with
nologyManagement&Economics,2(3–4),4.RetrievedJanuary22,2004,
beta-carotene or plants that produce pesticides to protect fromhttp://www.agbioforum.org/v2n34/v2n34a04-mcgloughlin.htm