Another, a second Green Revolution?
• NeoMalthusian view: No, let’s don’t have one.
– Keep food production as it is and population growth will
stabilize after people die of starvation.
– Buying into the idea of having another Green Revolution is
tied to a faith in the possibility of unlimited growth. We
just can’t expect that we can continue to feed all these
people
• Cornucopian, pro-technology view: Yes let’s have one.
More people, more problem-solving capacity
– We can engineer the food and the commodity chains
• The Third Plate
• Food 2.0
• Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs)
What is a commodity chain?
What is a cold chain?
Tilapia (Nile perch) commodity chain
Tilapia (Nile perch) commodity chain
• Intentional introduction of tilapia into
lakes in East Africa in 1960’s
• These lakes were known for their
incredible diversity of native fish, hence
they were called “Darwin’s Dreampond”
• Tilapia decimated native fish populations
• Local people lost long-practiced fishing
livelihoods unless they were lucky enough
to be employed in the tilapia processing
plants
• Local people could not afford tilapia which
was for the most part shipped out to
Europe
The Third Plate
• Perspective on how to lessen impact of food and
eating in the developed world while making it
accessible for more people
– First Plate: traditional commodity chains, large
grocery stores, meat-centered
– Second Plate: free-range meat, locally sourced
vegetables, artisanal products. However, the
commodity chains around this plate have become like
the first – unsustainable or too expensive for many
people
– Third plate: a more integrated system of vegetable,
grain, and livestock production
The Third Plate
• “We need to change our
definition of farm-to-table
cooking to mean bringing the
whole farm to the table — not
just blood pudding and scrapple
but the weeds, bones and other
byproducts that are the
equivalent of a fisherman’s
bycatch...phytoplankton sauce
and a main course of grilled
overwintered parsnip steaks
with poached marrow and a
Bordelaise sauce made with
bones.”
Fish (tilapia) tacos
Aquaculture and aquaponics
• Aquaculture (top)
pioneered by Chinese
(3500 BC)
• Can be integrated with
field agriculture
• Vegetation clippings can
be used to feed fish, fish
waste can be used to
fertilize plants
• Can be practiced inside
as aquaponics
Smithtown Seafood, Lexington KY
Food 2.0
• Food 2.0 companies
use computer
algorithms to analyze
thousands of plant
species to find out
what compounds can
be stripped out and
recombined to create
what they say are
more delicious and
sustainable sources
of food.
Food 2.0
• Synthetic or invitro meat
Engineering food: pesticides and
herbicides
• First generation pesticides
– Arsenic, hydrogen cyanide. Many of these were abandoned because
they were ineffective and/or too toxic to humans
• Second generation pesticides
–
–
–
–
Developed out WWII and used as part of the Green Revolution
Organochlorines (DDT) and organophosphates.
Many of the more dangerous of these now banned
In the last few decades, use of second generation pesticides now
complemented by the inclusion of natural pest control under practices
of integrated pest management (IPM)
– IPM seeks to use natural methods of pest and weed control before
resorting to chemicals
DDT, a second generation pesticide
IPM Integrated Pest Management
• Use as many non-chemical means to control
pests before resorting to pesticides
The IPM pyramid
Third generation pesticides: genetically-modified
organisms (GMO’s, transgenic organisms)
• When genes from unrelated species are
intentionally added to a plant genome,
genetic modification has occurred.
• Genes can be inserted that:
– Produce pesticides within a plant
– Promote resistance to herbicides within a
plant
– Produce other kinds of chemicals, like
vitamins
• These chemicals are found throughout
the tissues of a plant.
• GMO examples in this lecture: Bt corn,
Round-Up ready seeds, golden rice,
terminator seeds, transgenic oranges
Bt Corn
• Bacillus thuringiensis,
a naturally occurring
soil bacteria produces
a protein that repels
insects
• The bacterial gene
that produces this
protein has been
spliced into DNA of
corn to make it repel
moth larvae of the
European corn borer
Roundup-ready seeds
Use of GMO crops
Millions of hectares
• Chiefly monoculture crops like corn, soybeans,
canola
Golden rice
The Great Yellow Hype or Lifesaver?
• Critics of golden rice refer to its as the
Great Yellow Hype.
• In this view, golden rice is Trojan horse
for the biotechnology industry: golden
rice is just a way for a corporation to
make profits and increase our
dependency upon them
• However, supports say it could save
millions of lives and prevent unnecessary
blindness caused by a deficiency in
vitamin A
• It should be noted vitamin A is a fat
soluble vitamin. If people eating this
GMO rice don't also have fats in their
diet the rice is not very effective
Terminator seeds
• Genetic use
restriction
technology (GURT)
– Plants do not produce
seeds that can be
planted to grow more
individuals
– Farmers must buy
new seeds each year
The plight of small farmer’s in India
• High rates of suicide
• No single consensus,
but due to insufficient
and risky financial
credit systems, semimarginal land, drought,
and absence of
alternative income
sources
• GMO seeds not only
cause
Citrus greening ( “A Race to Save the
Orange by Altering its DNA”)
US orange industry adopting GMO
technology
Pros of GMOs
• Convenience for farmers who can afford them they have very
targeted efficiency
• Incorporation of medicines and vitamins into crops
• GMO's have, for now, reduced pesticide use
• No major impacts from genetic pollution, the genetic alteration of
non-target organisms, although:
– Resistance to pesticides produced by GMO plants have been
found in some insects
– Genes that provide resistance to herbicides have been found
in non-target plants
– No ‘superpests’ of ‘superweeds’ (yet)
Cons of GMOs
• Increased dependence in developed and developing world upon
the technology and consumerism around transgenic crops
• Have not reduced herbicide use
– Round Up ready sees encourage more spraying of Round Up
on crops
• There still remains the possibility of superpests and superweeds
and other unexpected outcomes
This article was written by Norman
Borlaug, one of the primary architects
of the first Green Revolution. He
advocates for the use of technology and
GMO’s to feed the growing number of
hungry people in the world.
GMO…OMG!!
But….
• Broad scientific
consensus is that
GMOs are not
inherently more risky
than other crops
• Economic structures
around GMOs create
issues – the seed and
plants are not the
problem but the
companies that sell
and make us
dependent upon
them
Not all industrial food is evil
• Local can be better, but this
overlooks our dependency
upon industrial food
• Also, in some cases,
industrially-produced food
may have less of an impact
on the environment
• Mix of agricultural types
necessary for different
global circumstances that
arise
• Need to continually assess
the potential for social
inequities and uneven
power relations