Globalization and its impact on Environment

▪ In this chapter we will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of globalization, made in the developing
countries, in the fields such as ecological degradation, detrimental effects of industrialized
agriculture etc. FYI
▪ Globalization, however, has existed for centuries by way of evolving trade routes, including the slave
trade, colonization, and immigration. The earlier phase of globalization in 14th, 15th centuries was
synonymous to colonisation.
▪ During 1930s and the aftermath of II world war people realized that Capitalism failed to bring back
the economy on path of progress and stability.
▪ Many benefits can result from global integration and interdependence, but we also need to heed its
negative effects.
What is globalization
▪ Globalization is the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international
influence or start operating on an international scale. FYI
▪ Globalization is a process of global economic, political and cultural integration. It links the people,
regions, countries much more closely together than they have ever been before. It has made the
world become a small village; as if the borders have been broken down between countries.
▪ Hence, globalization can be described as a social process that has resulted in the dissemination of
information, dispersion of ideas, diffusion of knowledge and technological knowhow, distribution of
resources - leading to the transformation of societies.
▪ Globalization is a social and historical reality.
Distinctive characteristics of Globalisation
▪ It is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of
different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information
technology. Technology has made globalisation faster, profitable and irreversible.
▪ Thus, globalization is a single word describing multiplicity of phenomena. It is omnipresent,
ubiquitous and multidimensional.
▪ In the initial years, globalization was viewed essentially as an economic process. Accordingly, the
characteristics assigned to it were more economic in nature. These were:
▪ a. Borderless world b. Liberalisation c. Free Trade d. Extended Economic Activities
▪ Economically, it means opening up of national market, free trade and commerce among nations, and
integration of national economies with the world economy.
▪ Politically, it means limited powers and functions of countries and empowerment of private sector.
▪ The rapid development of the capital market has been one of the important features of the current
process of globalization.
▪ Culturally, it means exchange of cultural values between societies and between nations.

No mugging up, read

out to understand
Benefits of globalization No mugging up, read
Has globalization not benefited the developing countries at all? out to understand
▪ There are undoubtedly a number of benefits that globalization brings.
▪ The electronics and communications boom too has facilitated much faster and greater exchange of
information and ideas, including the possibility of campaign alerts that people around the globe can
respond to virtually immediately.
▪ Several technologies relating to renewable energy, pollution control, efficiency, and so on, have been
part of the overall inflow that globalization enables.
▪ For many developing nations, globalization has led to an improvement in standard of living through
improved roads and transportation, improved health care, and improved education due to the global
expansion of corporations.
▪ Health and education are basic objectives to improve any nations, and there are strong relationships
between economic growth and health and education systems. Through growth in economic, living
standards and life expectancy for the developing nations certainly get better. According to the World
Bank (2004), "With globalization, more than 85 percent of the world's population can expect to live for
at least sixty years and this is actually twice as long as the average life expectancy 100 years ago".
▪ Because of improvements in traffic infrastructure one is able to reach one’s destination in a short time.
▪ Because globalization has created good amount of jobs that require high skilled set of people, this
demand allowed people to gain higher education. So, we can clearly see that job-oriented education
has increased in recent years.
▪ Because of globalization, the economies of the world are being increasingly integrated, example
mobile phones and internet have brought people closer. The world is becoming a smaller place. Work
can be outsourced to any part of the world that has an internet connection.
▪ In addition, globalization helped doctors and scientists to contribute to discover many diseases, which
spread by human, animals and birds, and it helped them to created appropriate medicines to fight
these deadly diseases. For example, HIV/ADIS, swine flu and birds' flu whole world know about these
diseases and they know how to avoid it.
▪ By globalization, there are many international organizations, such as, NGO, WHO and UNESCO, trying
to eliminate illiteracy and deadly diseases in the world and save the life.

Globalization, in short, points to the whole effort towards making the world global community as a one
village. Goods that were only found in western countries can now be found across the globe. Now under
developed areas can enjoy the benefits of scientific advances and industrial progress available in
developed countries for the improvement and growth of their areas.

▪ There is the East Asian Economic Miracle due to rapid industrialization and economic growth in
Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China.
 Down side of globalization This page → no mugging up,
Arguments against globalisation include - read out to understand
• Although many of the poor and middle class of the developing world have benefited greatly, at the
same time, the global elite have continued to experience substantial gains, while the poorest people in
the world have not seen much growth at all.
• Thus, although globalization has many advantages but it carries many fears in the current scenario.
• Globalization is at the core of many issues today. Globalization gets too much credit for changing the
world — and too much blame. This is especially true of global income inequality. A common narrative
frames globalization as the cause of inequality. However, the story is a bit complex.
▪ Since 1950 the volume of world trade has increased by 20 times. The process of industrialization
influences a no. of areas like the economy and social condition of a country and of the world at large.
▪ The policy of the developed countries to de-industrialize by shifting their bases to the developing
countries is seen as detrimental in those regions.
▪ In other words, globalization transfers jobs from developed countries to less developed countries. This
creates a system of unemployment in the developed countries. It has also put a favorable effect on the
employment scenario of some of the developing country. This results in short term economic gains for
the poor countries.
▪ Globalization tends to move taxation burdens away from corporations onto individual citizens.
Corporations have the ability to move to locations where the tax rate is lowest. The tax burdens are
ultimately shouldered by individual citizens.
The Spread of Pathogens
▪ A long time ago, contact with people residing in other part of the world was limited because we had
no means by which to travel over huge areas of land as quickly and efficiently as we do today.
▪ Furthermore, fewer people existed to have contact with in the first place. This meant that if one group
member caught a deadly virus, then most likely, those placed at risk of death by catching the same
virus would be the tribal members only.
▪ At present, one sick person can cause a huge domino effect where tens, hundreds, even thousands of
people or more can become infected. Not only because population density has increased, allowing for
more people to become infected, but also because a person with a disease can get on a plane, train,
or automobile and carry this disease to parts of the world that would otherwise have never been
exposed to it!
▪ The 2009 swine flu pandemic of Mexico - first confirmed cases of this virus appeared in Mexico. Then
it spread from Mexico to a cross-border city into the U.S. From there, it spread beyond to New York.
Travelers to and from Mexico got infected when traveling back home or to other parts of the world,
respectively, and this spread the virus all over the world in a matter of weeks. This speedy spread of
disease would've been unthinkable even a couple hundred years ago.
▪ The ease of travel has also facilitated the rapid global transfer of viruses. Increased trade and travel
have increased the spread of human, animal and plant diseases, like AIDS.
▪ While spread owing to global air travel has occurred in other outbreaks such as SARS in 2003, the
COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 illustrates the new challenges faced by the air transportation system.
▪ Pandemic happens when human beings come in contact with biological hazards in the form of living
organisms, such as, bacteria, virus, fungi, etc. Majority of emerging infectious diseases of humans
(including Ebola, HIV, avian influenza, Nipah virus, dengue, Chickungunya, corona virus (COVID-19))
have an animal origin - referred to as zoonotic diseases.
▪ Growing proximity between human settlements and wildlife due to deforestation, viruses are being
exchanged resulting in increasing the rate of disease transmission.
▪ Today, in the midst of pandemic, we do realize more and more that environmental awareness is an
incredibly important part of our lives, because, overexploitation of ecosystem services beyond
natural carrying capacities potentially heightens risks of zoonotic diseases. Environmental
degradation is detrimental because it plays an important role in healthy living.
Cultural effect:
▪ Due to globalization, many people have been attracted towards the “western lifestyle” – like more
prone to fast foods, materialistic world. Nowadays, we can notice some significant changes in the
expenditure pattern of the public - they are dying to spend more on unnecessary buyings, started
depending on various types of loans (luxury on loans !!), sometimes beyond their capacity. Savings
are very less as compared to consumption. People are eager to buy imported and branded goods.
▪ A visible example of cultural globalization is the induction of American fast food cuisine known as
McDonalds, KFC operating over then 36000 locations worldwide.
▪ Swami Vivekanand used to say that one should learn science from the west and let them have a
deep sense of our rich moral values.
What is the relationship between globalization and poverty? This topic → FYI
▪ Developing economies have long turned to international trade and finance as a solution for
development, yet 35% of the world's population still lives below the international poverty line.
Economists and political scientists explore this relationship but are far from reaching a conclusion.
▪ The relationship between globalization and poverty is complex.
▪ Cross-country studies document that globalization has been accompanied by increasing inequality
within developing countries.
▪ Some studies show that globalization has been associated with rising inequality, because the poor do
not always share in the gains from trade. They argue that globalization, as such, does not have any
such significance in improving the poverty situation in India.
▪ Many of the poor and middle class of the developing world have benefited greatly. At the same time,
the global elite have continued to experience substantial gains, while the poorest people in the world
have not seen much growth at all. The gap between the richest and poorest has expanded and has led
to the marginalization of certain sections of the society. The developed countries are the one much
benefited out of the entire process.
▪ To study the impact of globalization it is necessary to define poverty. “According to a recent Indian
government committee constituted to estimate poverty, nearly 40% of India’s population (400 million)
is poor.
▪ Globalization has contributed to increased demand for goods and services and overall economic
growth, still it is blamed for a rise in income inequality in developing countries.
• Economic growth is the main channel through which globalization can affect poverty; because, in
general, when countries open up to trade, they tend to grow faster and living standards tend to
increase. The usual argument goes that the benefits of this higher growth trickle down to the poor.
But unfortunately, in reality it did not happen.

GLOBALIZATION AND ENVIRONMENT

▪ There are environmental dimensions of globalization that are equally important both for the future
of the life support system of the planet and for their impacts on human society.
▪ Our explosive population growth, accelerated consumption and technological innovations have
increased the scale of human impacts so much that they are pushing planetary limits. Climate
change, stratospheric ozone depletion, biodiversity loss, is the planetary problems that require global
cooperation and management.
• The environment is intrinsically linked to economic development, providing natural resources that
fuel growth and ecosystem services that underpin both life and livelihoods.
• The present globalization is driven by the so called first-world countries’ economic and technological
model which is highly material and energy-intensive. It metabolizes huge quantities of natural
resources. This, in turn, is expected to put pressure on the natural resources in the form of raw
materials, and therefore, may deplete the natural resources and cause irreversible damages.
• They impact the vulnerability of ecosystems and societies, and the least resilient ecosystems. The
livelihoods of the poorest communities are most at risk.
▪ Several plant and animal species may become extinct and the non-renewable resources may be
exhausted soon depriving the future generations of their benefits.
▪ Environmental degradation leads to more competition for scarce resources, leading the powerful to
secure the resources for their use, leading to conflict, which leads to worsened social relations,
smash-and-grab resource use, greater resentment, etc.
▪ Moreover, environmental stress unleashed by potential climate change could trigger international
migration and, possibly, civil wars.
▪ The increasing movement of goods around the world has produced problems of the spread of toxic
chemicals and hazardous wastes, and growing quantities of wastes that are ever more expensive to
dispose of safely.
Globalization and deforestation:
▪ We are consumers of several agricultural products palm, soy, maize, sugar cane, rubber, dyes etc.
▪ Thirst for palm oil : Used not only as edible oil, it is to be used by European Unions as part of their
renewable energy plan. The high demand of palm oil resulting in the opening of numerous palm oil
plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia causing negative social and environmental consequences due
to clearing of forest. Conversion of natural tropical forests for cultivating oil palm is a major threat to
biodiversity (critical habitats for many endangered species) and livelihoods in the tropics. The forests
have been a lifeline for some human communities.
▪ Another Recent example include the conversion of large areas of the Brazilian savanna into cattle
farms and for soybean cultivation.
India and Globalization: FYI
▪ In India globalization has been identified with the policy reforms of 1991. Globalization in India
came along with liberalization and privatization.
▪ After 1980s the IT revolution and the economic downfall of socialist bloc (the then USSR), gave
further breath to market based economic system.
▪ Developing nations extended the boundaries of market, insisting upon poor nations to open up
trade and entry to their markets. Therefore, it would be easier for us to understand the dynamics of
globalization & poverty, if we observe that recent globalization is synonymous to extension of
capitalism.
▪ In context to India, globalization implies opening up the economy to foreign direct investment (FDI)
by providing facilities to foreign companies to invest in different fields of economic activity in India.
▪ The emergence of global integration brought with it a lot many obvious gains, in terms of high rates
of growth, transfer of technology, availability of funds and induction of competition.
▪ Globalization has also positively affected the overall health care situation in the country. More and
more medical innovations are coming in which are improving the health situation in India.
▪ It is said that India’s growth rate in the 1970’s was very low at 3% , though India’s average annual
growth rate almost doubled in the eighties to 5.9%. Data FYI only
▪ Consequently India’s position in the global economy has improved from the 8th position in 1991 to
4th place in 2001; when GDP is calculated on purchasing power parity basis.
▪ A growth rate of above 8% was an achievement by the Indian economy during the year 2003-04.
• Over the years, due to the liberalization policies, India has become a consumer oriented market -
throwing a wide array of products with wide options to the consumers. Globalization is a great
advantage to consumers as there is greater choice before them. Consumers now enjoy improved
quality and lower prices for several products.
• Due to globalization many MNCs have increased their investments in India. This means thousands of
people are getting highly paid jobs and, enjoy much higher standards of living than was possible
earlier.
• Some Indian companies have gained from successful collaborations with foreign companies.
Large Indian companies have emerged as multinationals like Tata Motors
• The growth of Indian economy very much depends upon rural participation as 72% of population still
lives in rural areas whose livelihood depends on agriculture and allied activities mainly.
• Globalization has been in the process to reach out to the rural consumers. But, their earnings have
to increase keeping up with their consumption demand. Otherwise, globalization will, in its present
form, raise GDP figures, but not the welfare of the masses. Not to mug up line by line,
read out to understand
Impact on natural resources: Not to mug up line by line,
read out to understand
▪ Take the example of bauxite. India is favourably endowed with rich resources of bauxite, which is the
main raw material for the production of aluminium. Most of the resources are concentrated in the
East Coast Bauxite deposits in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh followed by other states.
▪ India is not only self- sufficient in meeting its requirement but has huge potential to be a major
player in the international bauxite market.
▪ The lack of regulation in the mining sector, an inevitable consequence of a demand-driven economy
may deplete the natural resources and cause irreversible damages.
▪ This has been amply witnessed in the past in several western countries where industrial revolution
depleted the natural resources for generations to come. Today, these countries are looking towards
the developing countries for raw material and natural resources.
Impact on agriculture
▪ The impact of globalization on Indian agriculture has been felt since colonial times. In 1917, Indian
farmers revolted in Champaran against being forced to grow indigo instead of food grains, in order to
supply dye to Britain’s flourishing textile industry.
▪ Post liberalization, Indian farmers face new challenges in the form of competition from highly
subsidized agriculture of developed nations. At present, we need to counter the negative effects of
the Green Revolution, develop and promote organic farming etc.
▪ With globalization farmers were encouraged to shift from traditional crops to export-oriented ‘cash
crops’ such as cotton and tobacco but such crops needed far more agri-chemical inputs and water.
Thereby, growth in yields of principal crops notably rice and wheat have decelerated.
Tourism And Physical Degradation Of The Ecosystem
▪ In many countries international tourism can offset excessive trade imports in the balance of
payments through job creation or development, among others. Tourism also stimulates economic
growth of the economy as a whole. Improvement of roads, electrical grid systems,
telecommunications as well as social amenities are some of the benefits that have been realized
around communities within tourist destination sites. This brings about the improvement of
standards of living, especially in remote tourist places.
▪ “Tourism is the golden bird that fouls its own nest”. In the name of development, tourism too brings
in unwanted but inevitable baggages along with it.
▪ Every ecosystem works on a delicate natural balance. Every species in the ecosystem has a specific
role to play in the system. However, tourism often disturbs this delicate balance and creates a great
disaster in the ecosystem.
▪ a. When the number of tourists visiting an area over time surpasses the level to which the area can
sustain; it subsequently leads to an overuse of the available local resources causing a strain on the
environment. In most cases, tourism puts a strain on the already scarce local natural resources owing
to over-consumption. It can put enormous pressure on water resources, on an area and lead to
impacts such as: soil erosion, increased pollution, discharges into the sea, natural habitat loss,
increased pressure on endangered species etc.
▪ b. The movement of tourists from their home to the tourist destination involves transport via road,
rail, or air. Due to the rapid growth in international tourism, tourists now account for nearly 60% of
air travel. When a large number tourists use these modes of transport to reach a particular
attraction, it pollutes the air both locally and globally.
▪ In the tourist places, mostly, the city vehicles are air-conditioned that further pollute the air.
-----------------------------------------------

▪ Even the Mount Everest is not free of human-generated waste.

▪ Trekkers leave behind their oxygen cylinders, garbage, and camping equipment on the mountains
and hills.
▪ Human fecal waste in several camps is making its own Everest, as more than 700 climbers and
guides spend nearly two months on Everest’s slopes where toilets are not available. So digging a
hole is the best option climbers think of in that altitude. This has also resulted in a completely new
and disgusting ingredient for glaciers that feed the rivers downstream. FYI
▪ Hundreds of corpse have become the landmarks of Everest. Dead climbers become another
landmark on the route to Everest. Removing landmarks will obviously confuse the mountaineers but
Everest and dead people both deserve some respect.
The shipping industry
▪ The shipping industry has been a key ingredient in fostering trade, because the maritime industry
fulfilling the demands of globalization which is wholly accountable for the marine and cargo
transportation, and is one of the potent sources for pollution at sea.
▪ With such rapid industrial growth the marine ecological system is bound to get perturbed by
unwanted issues such as those of the marine wastes and effects of marine pollution.
Cruise ships problems
▪ Cruise ships, have been described as "floating cities" dumps a good deal of the solid wastes (plastic,
paper, wood, cardboard, food waste, cans, and glass) into rivers or the sea.
▪ Water pollution too has equally been reported. A study estimated of 70,000 tons of wastewater
produced per year from cruise ships in the Caribbean, which affects the natural habitat of marine life.
All cruise ships generate the following types of waste:
▪ a. "Gray water" from sinks, showers, laundries and galleys b. Sewage or "black water" from toilets
▪ c. Oily bilge water (is the mixture of water, oily fluids, lubricants and grease, cleaning fluids and other
▪ wastes that accumulate in the lowest part of a vessel)
▪ It is estimated that the cruise ships use, on average, 150 tons of heavy fuel oil every day. With the
bilge oil mixing with oceanic water, the use of this oil causes serious marine pollution and can lead to
the death of marine animals. Data FYI only
▪ In 2018, the cruise industry offered service to more than 26 million customers and it is expected the
industry will continue to grow in the coming years.
▪ Thus, globalization brings economic, environmental and cultural misery which have stirred “Anti-
globalization” movement in many parts of the world.
▪ Environmental diplomacy has turned into petty business transactions, not the establishment of fair
and just global environmental governance systems.
▪ Those who are in favour of globalization, the optimists, argue that globalization raises incomes
across the board so that even those at the bottom of the income distribution gain in absolute terms.
The pessimists, who oppose globalization, dispute that the benefits of globalization are not equally
distributed so that some may even lose in absolute terms.

• Because of globalization, communication have been good, transportation has been so good, power
generation, the comforts are plenty. But then again the problems that come from the
transportation (CO2, SO2, NO2, particulate matter etc).
• These things are all associated with the development, we are very happy and content with the
comforts. But some of the consequences arising man’s activity which we hear in our present day
life – like the cases of pollution, global warming, ozone layer depletion, climate change.
• Everything has a good side and a bad side. we are thinking, we are developing, we are progressing.
IS IT A SUSTAINABLE WAY? IMPOSSIBLE TO SUSTAIN. Because of uncontrolled growth we need to
face BACKLASHES OF ENVIRONMENT.
 Globalization and industrialized agriculture

▪ The study of effects of globalization would be incomplete without considering it’s impact on the
most important sector of the economy. The agricultural sector is known to be the backbone of the
Indian economy with an employment of 70 % of the population (in our country) in various
agricultural, horticultural and allied activities. Data are FYI
▪ It contributes 18 % to the GDP and 10 % to the export earnings of India. With a view to move
towards liberalizing the agricultural sector and promoting free and fair trade.
Introduction to industrial farming
▪ The green revolution was primarily from 1945 to 1970 in many parts of the world. Norman Borlaug,
the "Father of the Green Revolution", who is credited for the green revolution.
▪ In India, starting in the 1960s, we witnessed a dramatic change in the way we farm in the form of
the so-called Green Revolution, which mobilized industrial farming methods. Farming would never
be the same.
▪ But green revolution also led to some adverse consequences to the environment – in the following
few slides, we will unfold the story.
Impact of agriculture on environment
▪ Today, roughly 16 million square kilometers of the Earth’s land, or an area approximately the size of
South America, is used just to grow the world’s crops. And another 34 million square kilometers, an
area about the size of Africa, is used for pastures and grazing lands. Data are FYI
▪ Together, these agricultural lands cover roughly thirty-seven percent of Earth’s ice-free land surface;
the world’s urban lands, by comparison, cover roughly one percent. No other human activity can
match the geographic footprint of agriculture.
▪ Apart from soil being impacted, another biggest impact is felt in the waters of our planet.
▪ Industrialized farming has been a major source of pollution around the world. It led to significant
increased crop output through increased inputs of fertilizer, pesticide and water and some plant
breeding (HYV, GM-variety).

Ecological Imbalance
From an ecological perspective, it is apparent that industrial farming has led to immense ecological
imbalance in the ecosystem. There are many such examples where new agricultural lands are
generated from deforestation and wetland. We already have talked about the importance of wetland.
Destruction of wetlands during farming activities has led to loss of habitat for aquatic animal and plant
species.
 Cons of globalization : spread of capital intensive agriculture
▪ Through globalization corporate model of industrial agriculture has been introduced in India.
Agriculture driven by MNCs is a capital intensive and is something known as non-sustainable
agriculture.
▪ The entry of Monsanto in the Indian seed sector was made possible with a 1988 Seed Policy imposed
by the World Bank.
▪ Trade liberalization has also led to a shift in the cropping pattern from polyculture to monoculture.
▪ The rapid increase in production during the era of “Green revolution” brought about by the high-
yielding varieties (HYV), could not have been possible without the use of heavy doses of other inputs.
▪ Multinational corporations forces farmers to invest large amount in buying hybrid seeds and agri-
chemicals (pesticides, fertilizers). Hybrid seeds promise of higher yields but vulnerable to pest attack.
▪ Farmers are given easy credits to purchase costly seeds and other inputs from chemical industries and
farmers are lured by huge profit.
▪ Most of the MNCs produce pesticides and fertilizers in addition to HYV of seeds. MNCs like Monsanto,
are making profit by selling seeds and other chemicals and expand their markets. Multinational
corporations such as Monsanto, with considerable assistance from the World Bank, the World Trade
Organization, and even philanthropies like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are attempting to
impose “food totalitarianism” on the world. Read out and understand,
specially about Green revolution
▪ Monsanto had changed Indian agriculture. Through patents on seed, Monsanto has become the “Life
Lord” of our planet, collecting rents for life’s renewal from farmers, the original breeders.
▪ Monsanto pretends to be working for farmers’ welfare, and the deception that GMOs feed the world.
GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the emergence of superpests
and superweeds.
▪ So, in other words, indebtness and crop failure are inevitable outcomes of the capital-intensive
industrial agriculture driven by globalization. Small farmers and land less peasants are the victims of
this system. Indebtness and crop failure are the two main reasons – the farmers are committing
suicides in India.
▪ Monsanto’s seed monopolies, the destruction of alternatives, the collection of superprofits, and the
increasing vulnerability of monocultures has created a context for debt and agrarian distress which is
driving the farmers’ suicide epidemic in India. This crisis in the Indian agricultural sector is called “seed
suicide”. In her study, “seeds of suicide” Prof. Vandana Shiva analysed the impact of trade liberalization
on Indian agriculture and Indian farmers.
▪ As Monsanto’s profits grow, farmers’ debt grows. It is in this systemic sense that Monsanto’s seeds are
seeds of suicide.
▪ This is in contrast to what happens in developed countries where farmers enjoy state subsidies,
economic protections and benefits – makes them less vulnerable to such risks. According to
Government of India data, nearly 75 per cent rural debt is due to purchase inputs.
Read out and understand, specially about seed suicide
MODERN INDUSTRIALIZED AGRICULTURE
▪ Modern agriculture involves a number of distinct management practices. In case of crop plants, it
includes: selective breeding, tillage, the use of fertilizer and pesticides, irrigation, and reaping.
▪ Most crop plants are grown as food, while others are sources of fibre, fuel, or medicine.
▪ Industrial farming methods yields more crops on each parcel of land, because monoculture are good
at producing loads of one type crops.
▪ With the positive effects of industrialization in agriculture, there have been negative effects too as
observed by the degradation of the environment.
▪ The entire system of crop production under this system involve the increased use of fertilizers,
pesticides and machines; and consumption of fossil fuels, topsoil, and water at very unsustainable
rates leading to important environmental damages. Perhaps the most obvious impact of industrialized
farming comes from the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
▪ A. Pesticides made agriculture more efficient. The application of pesticides is relatively easy.
Pesticides often increase crop yield by preventing crop damage from pests, but persistence pesticides
remain in the environment for a long time. This put animals and higher trophic levels at risk for high
exposure to pesticides through bioaccumulation through food chain (see the water pollution chapter).
▪ There’s another problem with the pesticides, the pesticide trade mill (watch the recorded lecture).
▪ B. The wasteful and inappropriate application of fertilizers onto the crops (fertilizers that are not used
by crops) have polluted waterways worldwide, chocking them with excessing plant and algae growth -
▪ eutrophication - and can severely degrade lakes, whole watersheds, and even our coastal oceans. Such
type of “dead zones” (for example, “dead zone” of gulf of Mexico) appear in nearly every coastal area
downstream of industrialized agriculture.
▪ Plants require 16 essential nutrients to grow, of which carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are taken from
the air and soil water, while the other 13 are supplied by the soil. Of these 13 elements, N, P, and K are
known as Primary nutrients. These nutrients are taken up by the crop plants in the largest amount and
are the nutrients most commonly applied to the farmland. All nitrogenous fertilizers are produced
from ammonia gas. Secondary nutrients includes Ca, Mg, and S. The nutrients are taken up in the next
largest amounts (but their uptake is not as high as N, P, K). They are called “secondary” nutrients
because plants require them in smaller quantities than nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
▪ Over 90 million mega grams (Mg) of nitrogen are commercially fixed each year world wide for use as
fertilizers. Today, the use of fertilizers is so high that it has more than doubled the normal geological
flows of nitrogen and phosphorus across the Earth’s surface.
▪ Side effects of fertilisers and pesticides –increased rates of cancer and other health problems in rural
areas .
▪ C. The use of water for agriculture has caused the collapse of rivers, lakes, and even inland seas across
the world. The Colorado River, for example, rarely flows into the ocean today. The Aral Sea in the
former USSR has virtually disappeared since its main sources of water were diverted to grow cotton in
central Asia’s deserts.
▪ D. watch the video to get the idea about “release of GHGs” & salinization.
Seed suicide
▪ Cotton is one of the most ancient and important cash crops. It constitutes nearly 70 per cent of the
raw material for the textile industry and directly or indirectly provides huge employment in rural as
well as urban sectors.
▪ In 1995, Monsanto produced genetically engineered cotton seeds with the Bt protein, which would
help the crop ward off insects, particularly the bollworm. Cotton which had earlier been grown as a
mixture with food crops now had to be grown as a monoculture (with higher vulnerability to pests,
disease, drought and crop failure).
▪ Monsanto collects royalties by selling their GMO Bt Cotton seeds. Monsanto establishes its seed
monopoly by the following mechanisms i) Make farmers give up old seed, called “seed replacement” in
industry jargon. Since the inception of agriculture, farmers have always saved a portion of their harvest
to select seeds with which they could sow for the next growing season. This reuse of seeds remains
common practice. ii) Influence public institutions to stop breeding and not to release cotton varieties
for the farmers etc.
▪ Therefore, it is clear to you that farmers do not choose Bt cotton. They have to buy Bt cotton as all
other choices are destroyed. Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. This
systemic control has been intensified with Bt cotton. That is why most suicides are in the cotton belt.
▪ Biodiversity and small farmers are the foundation of food security, not corporations like Monsanto which
are destroying biodiversity and pushing farmers to suicide. These crimes against humanity must stop.
 Monoculture & Polyculture
▪ As already noted, in modern industrialized agriculture food crops are grown as a monoculture.
▪ Let us talk about monoculture and polyculture, the diff between the two farming techniques.
▪ Monoculture and polyculture are two types of practices or techniques that are employed in
agriculture.
▪ Monoculture is the agricultural practice of producing or cultivating a single crop species at a time
years after years in a given area. It requires less labor. Have no biodiversity as there is no variety.
▪ Monoculture is more susceptible to diseases and pests due to involvement of only a single plant
species, that can result in crop failure. If one plant is susceptible to fungus, they all are susceptible,
because they all the same plant and the entire crop would be destroyed. This happens because same
crop is planted over large area years after years and encourage pest build up. They lack biodiversity
leading to the system being weak and non-resilient. Watch the video for the discussion about
banana cancer and potato famine. This is the reason behind the use of large amount of pesticides.
▪ Causes soil degradation by depleting its nutrients and water content. In monoculture, all of the plant
need the same nutrients from the soil, therefore, they deplete the soil at those nutrients very
quickly ie., soil would run out of those nutrients very quickly. That’s why there is a need of
application of fertilizer. Each individual plants have the same structure, the roots all go to the same
level, so they are competing for the water which is why they need to irrigate.
▪ The most susceptible solution to pest control is to bring back the biodiversity in agriculture.
▪ Paddy cultivation is an example of this type.
POLYCULTURE :
▪ It is an agricultural practice which involves the cultivation of multiple or mixed crops in a given space.
▪ It is known to imitate the diverseness of natural ecosystems and provide habitat to more species.
Mixed vegetable gardening is an example of this type.
▪ Multi-cropping, intercropping, companion planting, beneficial weeds, and alley cropping are a part of
polyculture.
▪ This technique makes use of the given space, nutrients, and energy in a balanced way. Until the
advent of modern farming, and even now in many parts of the world, polyculture was and is the
dominant farming method.
▪ A well-known example is the “three sisters” cultivated by Native Americans, consisting of squash,
corn, and beans. In the three sisters polyculture, the tall corn acts as a support for the beans to grow
on, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil to be used by other plants, and the squash creates a ground
cover that repels both weeds and pests.
▪ Another example is the 7 layer forest garden, which differentiates plants by their use of vertical
space: it includes a canopy layer of trees at the top, followed by dwarf trees below, then shrubs, a
layer of herbaceous plants, the “rhizosphere” (i.e., root vegetables), then ground cover plants (think
strawberries) and finally vines.
▪ Lesser or no use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides
▪ In polyculture, all the plants seeks different nutrients from the soil. Therefore, it doesn’t demand
application of huge amount of fertilizer.
▪ Diverseness in the crops lessens the susceptibility to diseases and pests. In case, a particular plant is
susceptible to pests attack, it might happen that the pests destroy that particular plants, but there
are other varieties (it could be other variety of the same species or it could be a different species –
see the fig in the above slide) of crops to fall back on and thus, reducing the risk of total crop failure
which enables farmers make money at the end of the season. Therefore, having diverse field gave
the farmer buffer for when disease or insect hit hard.
▪ This process requires more labor.
▪ Decreases soil erosion and enhances soil health.
▪ A classic example would be Coconut Groove with cocoa plants, Rice cultivation with fish integration.
▪ Rice cultivation + Vegetables in the bunds + Fish integration + poultry.

▪ In a nutshell, on one hand, we live longer, healthier lives and no doubt modern industrial agriculture
has made it possible. On the other hand, without a doubt, how we grow the world’s food is having a
serious impact on the environment.
▪ As the cotton disaster shows, globalization of agriculture is threatening both the environment and
survival of farmers. Not only agriculture, but also water, minerals, and other natural resources are
becoming targets of MNCs.