On Frontier of Green Revolution, a Nascent Move Toward Organic Farming

A small movement of Indian farmers is abandoning the pesticide- and fertilizer-dependent techniques of the Green Revolution that enabled India to start feeding itself 48 years ago, according to an article in U.S. News and World Report. Some farmers in the Punjab region of western India are turning to organic agriculture because of soaring prices for seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides, the degradation of land from overuse of fertilizers and chemicals, and health problems that villagers and some officials attribute to industrial farming. The productivity and profit margins that once made Green Revolution agriculture attractive are rapidly shrinking at the same time that villagers say they’ve seen increases in cancer and renal failure. Government subsidies, however, still favor Green Revolution techniques.