118/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
favourable results In the short term, but over time have been
disastrous in a number of ways.
First, they require ever greater purchases of inputs: chemical
fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, and so forth, since these imposed
varieties of rice are genetically programmed to degenerate after a
generation.
Second, when the costs are added up, the performance of these
varieties is no better than those obtained through traditional
selection and improvement techniques. On the contrary.
Dependence, on the other hand, has grown enormously - on
machinery and fertilisers, all provided by the North's industries.
Finally, the 'Green Revolution' has produced a number of other
harmful effects. It was carried out to the detriment of communal
lands (forests, grazing lands). It has led to a severe impoverishment
of biodiversity, an increase in plant diseases (traditional varieties
were more resistant) and soil exhaustion (intensive crops have
removed certain vital micro-elements). It requires much greater
irrigation than traditional crops (and this, in regions where there are
real risks of drought); the massive use of inputs has salinated huge
tracts of land. As a result, the ecological balance has been irremedi
ably destroyed through the intensification of these monocultures.
Before the Green Revolution, the Ford Foundation had concluded
that land in Punjab was under-utilised. In fact, peasants and small
farmers had been using the land in a balanced way so as to avoid soil
exhaustion. Now that we are well into the disaster of the Green
Revolution, the Ford Foundation and World Bank have just
discovered the virtues of organic fertiliser - rather late in the day.
In a number of works, Vandana Shiva has decried the violence of
the Green Revolution. She places this entire episode within an
historical perspective that reveals what really lies behind the
'revolution'. She sees it as part of the plunder and exploitation of the
peasantry for the benefit of the trade and industry of the countries of
the centre. In the eighteenth century, Indian agriculture was
thriving. Until 1750, those who worked the land kept 700 of every
1,000 units produced. Of the remainder, only 50 left the village while
250 stayed in the village for the upkeep of the community. By the
nineteenth century, after 50 years of British colonial rule, this pattern
of distribution had been overturned. For every 1,000 units of
production, peasants had to hand over 600, of which 590 went to the
central authority, Britain. In spite of this tax grab on peasant