INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

TECHNOLOGY PARK MALAYSIA

SUSTAINABILITY PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

SCS83613-SPEP

APT3F2103IR
NAME : JESICA DWI NOVIA PUTRI
STUDENT ID : TP052614

LECTURE : DR. DANIEL RUIZ DE GARIBAY PONCE

1.0 Introduction

The Green Revolution is an initiative to use agricultural modernization technology to

boost food production, particularly in developing countries. The Green Revolution brought
technological advances to agriculture that allowed significant increases in food production to
feed a fast-increasing population. However, the Green Revolution also had severe effects on the
environment. This paper will analyze the impacts of the Green Revolution.

2.0 The Impacts of the Green Revolution

The Green Revolution is an unofficial term for significant improvements in agricultural

technology, notably food production, in numerous developing countries, particularly in Asia. The
Green Revolution emerged when many developing countries often experienced food shortages.
This condition prompted the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations to develop wheat and rice
cultivation with new technologies, namely by using superior seeds, chemical fertilizers,
anti-pesticide pesticides, and good irrigation systems. These are all new things in the cultivation
of food crops for traditional farmers. The aim is to increase food production while increasing the
welfare of farmers (Evenson and Gollin, 2003).

The idea of ​the Green Revolution stems from the research and writings of Thomas Robert
Malthus (1766 – 1834) who argued that the problem of poverty and destitution is a problem that
cannot be avoided by humans. Malthus' writings have influenced most of European society,
raising the awareness of movements to control the rate of population growth and knowledge on
superior seeds to increase the amount of food production. By suppressing the population and the
use of superior seeds that can multiply agricultural output, it is hoped this will be able to
overcome the problems of poverty and destitution. The Malthusian famine's catastrophic
predictions were disproved, and most developing countries were able to overcome their chronic
food shortages.

The crop productivity of the world has been growing over the last 50 years, although the
scarcity and the rising of land prices are still occurring. With the population growth that
happened rapidly, cereal crop production also increased during this period. The success of this
increase in production was due to the first Green Revolution's combination of high rates of
investment in crop research, infrastructure, and market growth, as well as appropriate policy
assistance. Due to the discovery of novel varieties arising from high-productivity plant breeding,
as well as improvements in farming techniques with high inputs and social engineering, the
Green Revolution has been shown to dramatically enhance food production. When viewed from
the country of Indonesia which has a large population with a high birth rate, the green revolution
is able to help Indonesia get out of a food shortage condition to become a country that is able to
meet its own needs. Before the Green Revolution, rice production in Indonesia was only able to
meet the needs of the community as much as 74-91 kg of rice/capita/year, this amount was far
from the target set at that time, which was 100 kg/capita/year. In 2018, the amount of Indonesian
rice production was able to meet the needs of food consumption which reached 114.6
kg/capita/year (Rahayu and Febriaty, 2019). The green revolution has also been successful in
helping the fulfillment of food in several other countries. Countries that previously lacked food
and relied on food imports from other countries, managed to meet their own food needs and even
became food exporters.

Because it causes substantial environmental damage, the Green Revolution has been
criticised in light of growing environmental consciousness. Environmental degradation is
perceived by supporters of the Green Revolution as a result of access to technology that
disregards established rules. The definition of the green revolution itself is an effort to develop
agricultural technology to increase food production. Changing from agriculture that used to use
traditional technology to agriculture that uses more advanced or modern technology.

In Indonesia, for example, the Green Revolution has resulted in the introduction of
high-yielding rice cultivars that respond to fertilization and irrigation. Application of pesticides
is used to try to control plant pests and diseases. The Green Revolution has demonstrated its
ability to enhance national food production, but it has also resulted in environmental difficulties
due to the improper application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Chemical fertilizer
consumption increased nearly six times during the implementation of the Green
Revolution-based rice intensification and extensification program, from 635 thousand tonnes in
1970 to 4.42 million tonnes in 2003. Chemical fertilizers are currently required for rice
cultivation at a rate of 4.50 million tonnes per year. Farmers tend to overuse fertilizers, according
to several research findings, notably in rice plants. In comparison to other rice-producing
countries in Asia, Indonesia uses a lot of fertilizers: 105, 22, 14 kg/hectare for N, P2O5, and
K2O, compared to 51, 15, 11 kg/hectare in the Philippines, 90, 33, 17 kg/hectare in Thailand and
95, 40, 35 kg/hectare in Malaysia. Excessive fertilizer use, in addition to waste, is detrimental to
the preservation of land and the ecosystem. Some water resources, including irrigation water and
groundwater (wells), as well as agricultural goods, have been contaminated by fertilizer residue
in the form of nitrate (NO3).

Rice production with continual fertilization results in significant fertilizer residues as well
as an increase in heavy metal levels, particularly Pb (plumbun) and Cd (cadmium). These two
forms of heavy metals have been identified as polluting or contaminating 2140 percent of paddy
fields in West Java, Indonesia, with 47 percent of them being seriously contaminated (> 1.0 and
> 0.24 ppm). Pesticide use increased dramatically during the Green Revolution, from 5,234
tonnes in 1978 to more than 18,000 tonnes in 1986, similar to fertilizer consumption. Vegetables,
plantations, and other crops with an allocation of roughly 10,000 tonnes followed a similar
pattern. percent and 24.40 percent, respectively. In 2002, there were 813 formulations and 341
active pesticide chemicals circulating, with insecticides accounting for 40% of the total,
herbicides for 29%, and fungicides for 19%. The negative impacts of using pesticides include: 1)
increasing resistance and resurgence of plant-disturbing organisms, 2) disturbing the balance of
biodiversity, including natural enemies (predators) and other important organisms, 3) disrupting
human and animal health, and 4) polluting them. plant products, water, soil, and air. In some
areas in Java, pesticide residues in several food products including soybeans have approached the
maximum residue limit, especially organophosphate, carbamate, and organochlorine compounds.
The same trend also occurred in soil, irrigation water, and fish. Pesticide residues also harm
steroid metabolism, thyroid function, and spermatogenesis, as well as the reproductive system,
known as endocrine pesticides, being disrupted.
3.0 Conclusion

It can be concluded that the Green Revolution has played a great role in helping
developing countries, particularly in Asia, to increase food production in order to meet the
consumption of the population. However, the Green Revolution has impacted the environment
with the increased use of pesticides which harmed the environment.

4.0 References

Evenson, R. and Gollin, D., 2003. Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960 to 2000.
Science, 300(5620), pp.758-762.

Pingali, P., 2012. Green Revolution: Impacts, limits, and the path ahead. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 109(31), pp.12302-12308.

Rahayu, S. and Febriaty, H., 2019. Analisis Perkembangan Produksi Beras Dan Impor Beras Di
Indonesia. [online] Available at: <http://dx.doi.org/10.30596%2Fsnk.v1i1.3613> [Accessed 9
November 2021].

Singh, R., 2000. Environmental consequences of agricultural development: a case study from the
Green Revolution state of Haryana, India. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 82(1-3),
pp.97-103.