Even though the green revolution seemed to
be the answer for the growing needs of a growing population and created a
better way of studying and understanding agriculture, there was a lot of
opposition and criticisms surrounding the movement. Thought proponents of the
movement claimed it was to better the world, critics say it brought about just
the opposite and caused a lot of problems across the globe.
Malthusian criticisms were those that
involved some kind of variation of the Malthusian population and the principles
of that population. These concerns often seemed to revolve around the idea that
the green revolution is simply not able to be sustained. They also argued that humanity is simply in a state of being overpopulated and there is
little that the green population could do to hinder that.
To some critics, the increasing food
production is not necessarily linked to the security of having food, and is
simply a part of a larger and more in-depth equation. Some critics have also
challenged that the value of the increased production of food by the green
revolution is not that of the same value as before the green revolution and
although there may be an increased volume of food, it does not necessarily mean
increased value or quality of food.
In fact, there have been some criticisms
that say the green revolution actually caused a decrease in food security for
some populations. One of the claims suggests that there was a shift in subsidence
created crops to crops that were oriented towards production higher amounts of
grain for exporting or to be used for animal feed. They claim that the green
revolution actually replaced a lot of the farm land that was being used by and
fed Indian peasants, with wheat which did not feed the peasant populations.
In addition, there were political impacts
that the green revolution faced and some claim caused. The political claims
were made that the green revolution was serving as more of a function of
providing food for populations in underdeveloped countries which created social
stability and the insurgency of communism back to home.
There were also socioeconomic impacts,
globalization impacts and environmental impacts that the green revolution was
said to cause, none of which were said to be positive impacts. These caused
problems with poverty, social status, global poverty issues in populations and
environmental concerns.