DBQ: The Green Revolution

Although the Green Revolution was started to end world hunger and the disparity in developing countries, it caused other consequences which included population growth and changes in genetic diversity of certain plants and cultural lifestyles. This revolution introduced the use of new technology and many scientifically altered crops to the world. With the rise in food supply, the population increased and some countries weren’t as starving as before. But with the advancement in technology and crop varieties, the environment and some societies suffered. Before the revolution, many countries were miserable. Without enough food supply to feed their people, the populations were vulnerable to disease and could be a threat to more successful areas
In Mexico and India the rise in wheat yields began after the advancements from the revolution (Doc.1). Also, as the food supply grew, the world population was steadily rising because less people were suffering from starvation (Doc.2). The authors of these documents are emphasizing the increases of these variables in their data, because their jobs for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations are to report the success of the revolution, to say that it was a success in their part (Doc.1&2). Also, in other places around the world such as India and Mexico they considered the revolution a success story. The farmers of Punjab, India dove right into the opportunity to use the new technologies that the revolution offered and everyone competed to find a better use for them (Doc.5). The food and agricultural minister for India makes the point that the farmers were eager to use the revolutionary technology because, his job is to make sure that his enterprise was successful. In Mexico, the agriculture made the farmers, some more than others, very wealthy (Doc.6). The new technology and crops that were available made it possible to have a bigger crop, without as much intensive care that would have been needed before the revolution. A document that had accounted for the accomplishment of India’s and Mexico’s agriculture would have been useful to see if there was in fact real fulfillment from the Green Revolution and it could help us understand whether or not the crops helped, because some type of crop record could show which crops thrived, which crops failed, and how the genetically altered crops effected the ones prior to the