The Mythology of the Green Revolution

[@muskduh]

the planet is not in trouble! it is humanity that needs saving

[@laurellrowe7578]

Thanks for this eye opener. I appreciate your uprightness, you're truly a blessing . I had to listen twice.

[@angelestrada161]

Wow this was mind opening

[@robertortiz-wilson1588]

Absolute delusion.

[@pukulu]

Houses built of ticky-tacky is a reference to Malvina Reynolds' tune "Little Boxes". Peter Carr and my mother used to sing that tune when we were all camping in Yosemite. As usual, Vandana Shiva's advice is actually simple: just use natural methods even if they're a bit labor intensive. With all the people in India, why not use methods that take advantage of all the people's labor? The best methods for India will not be the best methods for Norway, and vice versa.

[@marong3717]

see videos of palekar farming to know truth . green revolution destroyed india dont say that to her , she is not giving loans to mak eprofits, she is not selling pesticides to make profit , she is not selling fertilizers to make profit, she is not selling drugs for people who got infected due to pesticide and fertilizer use, she is not even selling tractors or pumps to lift water , what she said is truth . now farmers realised this thing and moving towards zerobufget naturral farming by subash palekar which dont need any onverstment , dont need pesticides and fertilizers , dont need ground water , which most importantly dont need any loans from banks .

[@greensorrel6860]

@@marong3717 absolutely agree but don’t understand why you disagree with the above comment

[@LardBucket_]

2:55 "..we've done calculations that show we'd have had exactly that much rice and wheat with organic farming if we'd had that much land and that much irrigation." Does anyone know where I can find specifics about these calculations?

[@nepalihercules]

you cant, she pulled it out of her ass

[@marong3717]

see videos of palekar farming to know truth . green revolution destroyed india

[@marong3717]

see videos of palekar farming to know truth . green revolution destroyed india dont say that to her , she is not giving loans to mak eprofits, she is not selling pesticides to make profit , she is not selling fertilizers to make profit, she is not selling drugs for people who got infected due to pesticide and fertilizer use, she is not even selling tractors or pumps to lift water , what she said is truth . now farmers realised this thing and moving towards zerobufget naturral farming by subash palekar which dont need any onverstment , dont need pesticides and fertilizers , dont need ground water , which most importantly dont need any loans from banks .

[@jk4351]

LardBucket there's no way that you can produce same quantity with organic agriculture. I have been told by a PhD in agronomy that in growing fruit the difference between organic and conventional agriculture is less drastic.In the developing world, people still need industrial agriculture to sustain themselves, but Skandinavaca for example don't have to, because their populations are small, and they have higher standard of living, so they can afford to be picky.

[@DukeGMOLOL]

@@nepalihercules --Exactly!

[@DukeGMOLOL]

Achu Aveedran hit it on the nose down below. He basically said that India was ALREADY farming organically and starving before the Green Revolution. His comment: "People tend to forget one thing, india was farming organically like Ms. Shiva said and people were dying from famines and droughts. If everything was going well why should a poor country like India invest in this?

[@DearProfessorRF]

Whoever Achu is he forgot to mention that the famines in India had been caused because of British colonialism and extraction. He also forgot, or maybe doesn’t even know, that the green revolution was actually a “fertilizer revolution” where war powers decided to use nitrate to make bombs in World War II, in farming, which led to the destruction of soil and the independent work of small farmers.

[@DukeGMOLOL]

@@DearProfessorRF India had famines after independence. The fact remains that India farmed organically before and after Britain and had famines. Without that fertilizer and much improved seed of the Green Revolution you would have gotten your wish of millions dying of starvation.

[@DearProfessorRF]

@@DukeGMOLOL the green revolution brought food to people as much as they took away food from people, not to mention all the environmental damage that continues till today and not only in India.

[@DearProfessorRF]

@@DukeGMOLOL and I also forgot to mention that now “you’re getting your wish” as you say, to have farmers committing suicide in high numbers, displaced by this capitalist system. Speaking of millions starved to death from 1943 to 1944, more than three million Indians died of starvation and malnutrition, and millions more fell into crushing poverty, courtesy of Mr. Winston Churchill.

[@DukeGMOLOL]

@@DearProfessorRF You wrote, "the green revolution brought food to people as much as they took away food from people, not to mention all the environmental damage that continues till today and not only in India." Abject nonsense. Vandana Shiva wants to keep people in 16th century farming so they can starve. Shiva is a low life.

[@TheLeoachu]

People tend to forget one thing, india was farming organically like Ms. Shiva said and people were dying from famines and droughts. If everything was going well why should a poor country like India invest in this? It is a fact that Norman Bourlaug's methods pulled billions out of hunger and starvation. Almost every valid study says organic farming need at least 25% more land to produce same yield. Organic farming also uses organic pesticides. Of course high yield farming has its problems but those were small when compared to people dying of starvation. But in today's world we can go for different methods with the aid of technology but going organic is not a solution, it is going to deplete our food sources and only rich people will be able to afford these so called organic produces. Hope better technology with less side effects come into being.

[@user-ny7sg9mz1v]

Yeah, very true. We can just take the stats of famine that hit india over ages and see those drastic drop since green revolution. This madness of Organic farming will bring back long dead demons from their graves.

[@DukeGMOLOL]

India was ALREADY farming organically. Right on Achu, great comment. She discredits herself.

[@mgsp87]

Wow she is so crazy.

[@DukeGMOLOL]

And rich.

[@WedgieDealer]

So her argument is that green revolution used a lot of water and that ruined old buildings.

[@greensorrel6860]

It polluted the water killed the soil gave people cancer didn’t actually produce more than traditional methods costs rural farmers much more money and resources to use rather, were you not listening

[@sshubamsanmotra]

Well said mam green revolution z cruse for our country

[@sidsaini6211]

“When everything is a commodity, nothing is of value, not even human life.”

[@AtheosNous]

Does Ms Shiva have scientific evidence for her claims? She does display zealotry for her causes, charging $40,000 per speaking engagement (2014). When she criticized aid from the US and Oxfam for the state of Orissa in 1999, what alternative did she offer the millions of homeless victims of the cyclone? Starvation? Norman Borlaug helped Mexico quadruple wheat production, from not having enough to feed itself to an exporter. Before moving on to Africa, he took his Green Revolution to India and Pakistan. Both nations doubled production in 5 years. He has stated that his work is "a change in the right direction, but it has not transformed the world into a Utopia." His goal was to give everyone three meals a day. He said of his critics: "They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels (Delhi in this case). If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, *as I have for fifty years*, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things." (my emphasis)

[@AtheosNous]

***** Thank you. To prevent food shortage, either produce more food or reduce the population growth (longer term solution). She could help more if she tackled the practical, daily problems of the poor and encouraged women's liberty and family planning, as Ms. Khushi Kabir does for instance.

[@MrFreudianslips]

She is not just delusional. She is pure evil.

[@cosmicdancer]

She can forget ever winning the World Food Prize.

[@rollthadice4]

She is raising legitimate ecological concerns about industrial agriculture and presenting alternative ways forward. Have you read her book about ecofeminism? How many books have you written about that subject?

[@AtheosNous]

Be Great Ecofeminism? How about just humanism? How about helping people survive and improving their lives first so they could afford the leisure and opportunity to ponder any "ism"? I am much more impressed with Akhtar Hameed Khan and Muhammad Yunus' work, who empower women by offering millions in thousands of rural villages the means of independence and dignity, or the work of family planners who reduced Bangladesh's children-per-woman number from 6 down to 2 in a few decades, freeing them from the true cause of poverty. I also commend the example set by Ms Khushi Kabir, who lived and worked with rural marginalized women and men, in some of the most remote areas of Bangladesh, who promotes basic human rights for all. Protecting our ecology is important, but shouldn't we address people's most basic right or need first, their survival? That was the point of my OP. Must one author a book in order to research, examine facts and form an opinion? Are you not voicing your opinion as I did, basing your argument on someone else's publication? Human intellectual progress was never limited to only "published" individuals. If that were indeed the case, we would have starved from lack of ideas as well as sustenance.

[@pukulu]

A friend of mine visited me here in Laguna today. She's a retired sociology professor who taught at Cal State Fullerton for 32 years. She suggested that birth control medication could be added to the water. Being trained in statistics, I suggested randomized sterilization procedures for cash compensation. She suggested mandatory sterilization for women after they've had 1 child. We're already well into overshoot, so it's too late for "educate and empower women" to be the sole answer.

[@marong3717]

see videos of palekar farming to know truth . green revolution destroyed india dont say that to her , she is not giving loans to mak eprofits, she is not selling pesticides to make profit , she is not selling fertilizers to make profit, she is not selling drugs for people who got infected due to pesticide and fertilizer use, she is not even selling tractors or pumps to lift water , what she said is truth . now farmers realised this thing and moving towards zerobufget naturral farming by subash palekar which dont need any onverstment , dont need pesticides and fertilizers , dont need ground water , which most importantly dont need any loans from banks .

[@komtaneyugy4049]

Awesome video

[@mifuerzamorales]

Six massive extintion of the species/Elizabeth Kolbert

[@amiraali4269]

inspiring talk

[@mayamachine]

people fail to understand where water really comes from, new water and how it's created. primary water, the primary water cycle they only know about the secondary water cycle.

[@harrysullivan110]

Whether she means well or not her nostalgic talk of older natural methods do not stack up. Traditional farming (barely) sustained a much smaller global population. We have to look at ways to sustain our huge population whilst gradually reducing it and mitigating our environmental impact. These anti science arguments may be appealing to comfortable middle class people but they do not solve our problems

[@DukeGMOLOL]

Right on!!

[@deskryptic]

Its not necessarily anti science. There are mechanistic and ecological approaches to science. Maximize one factor for a period of time and create unpredictable and destructive influences in other factors over a longer period. The other issue she is talking about here is centralization and control of resources. Its not just a matter of pro-science and anti-science. Its also about economic and political sovereignty.

[@Arcticpolar12]

Yes and rather than studying and understanding why traditional methods have worked up to this point, the western world instead views these methods as “primitive” and tries to use western science to fix everything. These methods have worked for a long time for a reason. Western science is advanced yes and it works for some western cultures (although it’s not really sustainable, and makes the whole society dependant on like 1% of the population for food), but western science can’t just be applied to other countries, like India, without consideration for local economical/cultural/ecological conditions. Therein lies the problem with the green revolution, it’s ignorant and lacks awareness in its application.

[@jimbob6490]

Just gonna say egypt while near water did not have a whole lot of it as the Mediterranean was not drinkable yet they are one of the greatest ancient civilizations.

[@lukak3]

Ever heard of the Nile River...

[@tommygreek340]

She's awesome

[@rahulkadian3469]

Please don't listen to her. She has single handidly destroyed Sri Lanka

[@DukeGMOLOL]

That's right.

[@pukulu]

1 more thing: India's population cannot humanely be reduced right away. 1.2+ billion people cannot be reduced down to something more sustainable, such as maybe 200 million people or so, without severe sterilization methods. I've never studied demography but it's related to statistics, so I have some intuition on the matter. I believe that there are around 200 sovereign nations in the world. How are they all supposed to become convinced that mass sterilization procedures are wise?

[@matiascoll5439]

Please, talk with your doctor to change the pills, you are in trouble

[@DukeGMOLOL]

Good one.

[@Humptydumptytribe]

The best way to reduce India's (and the planet's) unsustainable water usage by 90 percent is to reduce India's (and the planet's) unsustainable population by 90 percent, and then we can all return to "ecological farming."

[@deskryptic]

do you want to be part of that 90%?

[@hicknopunk]

This is the only true solution. It's so sad that humans are so selfish they will never do it.

[@slideszi]

Wow....

[@stoicforall]

Did you consider that water usage is linked with population demand? Is there any evidence that the green revolution and only it was responsible for increased water consumption?

[@jk4351]

Usman Shaukat farms consume, like 9 times more water than fields...also, in plant production we are getting more efficient with water, because too much of it damages plants in several different ways, but when it comes to animals you can't do that.Industry also wastes a lot of water, I heard smth like 15l of water are spent to make 1 pair of jeans.

[@robertortiz-wilson1588]

Does this woman not realize without the Green Revolution billions would have died from starvation?

[@hicknopunk]

She clearly reads no sources or facts.

[@DukeGMOLOL]

She can't turn back from her position now it's too lucrative. Mark Lynas did have the guts however.

[@DWAINBOELTER]

What a complete distortion of reality!!! She uses the term "the drowning of entire villages. While the land has been covered by water, it was not people who were drowned, it was land....Pleeeeaaase! More critically, she claims that the increase in production was due to the increased use of water. She COMPLETELY ignores the whole impact of the green revolution. It was, in reality, the war with wheat "rust" which destroys the wheat plant and hence wheat production. She ignores the billions of lives saved from starvation by this green revolution through the consistent and ongoing battle to create disease resistant varieties of wheat. And here closing comment that "even human life doesn't have value"...she should look in the mirror. Norman Borlaug received the Nobel Peace prize because he saved the lives of billions who would have otherwise starved. And she quibbles about houses being "sticky tacky" Have you ever been to India? They are lucky to have houses at all in a society that struggles with poverty so bad that people live on the street and that struggles to feed its population. I can sympathize with a good word for organic faming practices, but lets gain a little perspective here, stop distorting the true story of the green revolution, and focus even more resources on the REALLY critical issues such as population control, Vandana Shiva. Only then would you get even a sliver of respect from me.

[@titmouse0hehehe]

+Dwaino Bman I mostly agree with you, dude, but it seems worth pointing out that she's probably been to India.

[@DWAINBOELTER]

+Tit Mouse I am from America...that does not make me, in and of itself, an expert on anything that just so happens to occur in this country. If it were not for the fact that her country compatriots would suffer tremendously, I would be tempted to say, OK, go it alone without the rust resistant varieties of wheat.

[@MrFreudianslips]

I'm from India and we owe our lives to green revolution and Mr Norman Borlaug. He holds the highest respect in our country more than any politician of our own. Vandana Shiva ( the lady in the video) thrives on misinformation and fear. They are nincompoops like the people who jailed Galileo.

[@marong3717]

see subash palekar zero budget farming where with o investment , 10% water used as the lady says farmers are growing naturally ,same production without pesticide and fertilizer .

[@DukeGMOLOL]

Bravo Dwaino!!

[@montgomeryscott8662]

a charlatan speaking non sense.

[@mrsalat1991]

Great

[@prakashsuthar7459]

Wrong info

[@Human_Evolution-]

Downvote her if she is talking anti science.

[@DukeGMOLOL]

I downvoted her.