Green Revolution Dbq

Green Revolution DBQ

Few people in today’s world actually know where their food comes from and how it got the supermarket. Since 1945, the Green Revolution has, simply put, revolutionized how we get food. The human race has been able to successfully feed everyone on the planet with bug and disease resistant crops that are the product of both Mother Nature and Dr. Borlaug. Unfortunately, the Green Revolution isn’t all butterflies and rainbows. There are other consequences to the Revolution, including (but not limited to), increased fossil fuel use, increased environmental damage, extinction of species and many more. These effects are unfortunate, but not as unfortunate as millions, if not billions, of starving people.

Document 1 is a graph that was published by FOA of the United Nations. It shows how the food supply has kept pace (for the most part) with the human population. This source doesn’t portray a particular opinion, as all it shows is supply vs demand. This means it can be interpreted to have bias. The simple fact of it is that people were starving. A revolution needed to happen or the wrong curve would go down.

Document 2 is a different story. It was written by Dr. Norman Borlaug, considered by many to be the starter and father of the Green Revolution. He is writing this document for all the scientists and biologist who continue to work on plants. He tells them that even though we have enough food right now, “Hunger always prevails, and survival depends on annual success or failure of crops”. He urges scientists not to stop innovating, not to rest on their laurels and to keep feeding humans. To Dr. Borlaug, the only consequence of the Revolution was that it delayed human starvation and suffering. As the human population grows, so most the amount of food we produce. This requires constant development of food in order to increase production

Document 3 is in interview of India’s minister food and agriculture from 1964-67. His view on the Green Revolution is similar to Dr. Borlaug’s. He views the Green Revolution as a positive force. According to him, farmers in the Punjab region “latched on to the new growing technology with earnest anticipation.” They competed with each other to grow the most food. The only consequence