Second Green Revolution
{{Short description|Proposed change in agricultural production}}
The Second Green Revolution is a change in agricultural production widely thought necessary to feed and sustain the growing population on Earth.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/25/magazine/the-second-green-revolution.html|title=THE SECOND GREEN REVOLUTION|last=Steinhart|first=Peter|date=October 25, 1981|publisher=NYT|accessdate=4 January 2010}}{{cite web|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2008/0603/p08s01-comv.html|title=Plant a second Green Revolution A global food summit is a test of leadership in pushing research on higher crop yields.|date=June 3, 2008|publisher=The Christian Science Monitor|accessdate=4 January 2010}}
These calls came about as a response to rising food commodity prices and fears of peak oil, among other factors.
It is named after the Green Revolution.
Usage
A 1981 article by Peter Steinhart used the term Second Green Revolution to describe future widespread adoption of genetic engineering of new food crops for increased crop yield and nutrition. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr's 2006 book The Gene Revolution: GM Crops and Unequal Development also explored this concept.
have used the term to refer to a combination of urban agriculture, smaller farm size and organic agriculture with the aim of increasing resource sustainability of crop production.{{cite journal|url=https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1094/CM-2006-0921-03-RV|title=Challenges Facing a Second Green Revolution: Expanding the Reach of Organic Agriculture|last=Dobbs|first=Thomas|journal=Plant Health Progress |date=21 September 2006|publisher=Plant Management Network|doi=10.1094/CM-2006-0921-03-RV |s2cid=62881257 |url-access=subscription}}
Proponents
Bill Gates has been among the proponents of a second green revolution, saying:{{Cite web|url=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/can-the-worlds-richest-man-feed-the-planet/|title=Can the world's richest man feed the planet?|last=Biello|first=David|date=January 4, 2010|website=Scientific American}}
Three quarters of the world's poorest people get their food and income by farming small plots of land...if we can make smallholder farming more productive and more profitable, we can have a massive impact on hunger and nutrition and poverty...the charge is clear—we have to develop crops that can grow in a drought; that can survive in a flood; that can resist pests and disease...we need higher yields on the same land in harsher weather."
Gates made these remarks during the World Food Prize. He has made over US$1.4 billion in contributions towards agricultural developments.
Opponents
Some opponents of the Second Green Revolution believe that social inequity is a major factor leading to food insecurity, one which is not addressed by increasing food production capacity.{{cite web|url=http://www.foodfirst.org/media/opeds/2000/4-greenrev.html |title=Lessons from the Green Revolution |date=April 8, 2000 |accessdate=4 January 2010 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090714215036/http://www.foodfirst.org/media/opeds/2000/4-greenrev.html |archivedate=July 14, 2009 }}