THE REAL GREEN REVOLUTION FIVE STAR Edition

Despite the unparalleled accomplishments of modern agriculture, a chorus of complaints has risen against it. We are told to develop sustainable agriculture before it is too late. In the past, we ignored similar complaints in books such as "The Population Bomb," which predicted that unless...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSt. Louis post-dispatch
Main Author Krug, Edward C
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published St. Louis, Mo Pulitzer, Inc 07.05.1993
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Summary:Despite the unparalleled accomplishments of modern agriculture, a chorus of complaints has risen against it. We are told to develop sustainable agriculture before it is too late. In the past, we ignored similar complaints in books such as "The Population Bomb," which predicted that unless we returned to the sustainable agriculture of the pre-industrial past, which used no chemicals or biotechnology and relied on "organic" farming techniques, the world would run out of food by 1975 or 1977. Instead, we honored Norman Borlaug (winner of the Nobel Prize in 1970) for helping Asia through the real green revolution with improved crop varieties and modernized agricultural practices. Today, however, it is Borlaug who is ignored, even though he can break the famine in Africa by doubling the food supply with new drought-resistant sorghum and new varieties of corn and wheat that thrive on infertile, acid soil. Instead, Africa starves as the World Bank promotes the so-called sustainable agriculture advocated by '60s-style hippies.