In order to understand the role of Genetically Modified Organisms in the future of agriculture we need to go back to the origins of industrial agriculture in the so-called “Green Revolution” - a connection that is nominally evidenced by the introduction of GMO technology often being heralded as a “Second Green Revolution”, or even the “Gene Revolution”.
The „first‟ Green Revolution, beginning in the 1960s, ushered in the practice of large-scale mono-cropping of newly invented high-yield crop varieties, and the heavy use nitrogen fertilizers, water, chemical herbicides, pesticides, and heavy farm machinery.
The result was an increase in grain production, but that came at the cost of environmental pollution, health problems, the destruction of traditional farming communities, an increase in social inequalities, the concentration of control of the world food system in the hands of large corporations, the loss of agro-biodiversity and traditional farming knowledge.
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