Shall man live by rice alone?
“Seeking a technological food fix for world hunger may be “the most commercially malevolent wild goose chase of the new century.” Dr. Richard Horton, editor of the British science journal The Lancet The Green Revolution of the 1960s and 70s replaced diverse cropping systems with monocultures of new wheat and rice varieties. These new hybrids required irrigation, fertilizers and herbicides to deliver increased yields. These herbicides killed off many green, leafy vegetables that had been important sources of Vitamin A. They also poisoned rice paddy waters, causing steep declines in fish and shrimp populations in areas such as Bangladesh, where integrated rice-fish farming is practiced. Monoculture in the fields predictably led to less diverse diets. In India, household consumption of vegetables has decreased 12% over the past two decades. In Thailand, 80% of caloric intake now comes from rice, up from less than 50% before the Green Revolution. An impoverished diet that consists of littl
