Has anyone talked about the role the Green Revolution probably played in making factory farming economically viable?
Among other enabling factors (e.g. antibiotics), factory farming, especially of pigs and poultry, depends on cheap grain feed. The system only works at scale if feed costs are low enough to make confinement viable relative to pasture. The Green Revolution roughly tripled global grain production between 1960 and 2000, and maize in particular became cheap enough to feed to animals at industrial volumes.
Every time I see a celebration of Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution, I can’t help but recoil a little, thinking about the unintended consequence on the tens of billions of non-human animals impacted.
If this is true, I feel conflicted in how to think about the Green Revolution. Clearly good intentions, saved hundreds of millions of humna, condemned hundreds of billions to lives of animals to pain. I feel like the EA community has the right virtues to hold this complexity.
Which comes back to the question: how should we talk about the Green Revolution?
I understand the concern, but I don’t think we gain much from vilifying scientific discovery because of what humans do with it down the line, especially a second order effect like this. I don’t think it’s super complex. Was it bad to discover nuclear fission because the USA bombed Hiroshima?
I think important discoveries well intended should be praised, and it’s a separate discussion why it was then used for ill.
Has anyone talked about the role the Green Revolution probably played in making factory farming economically viable?
Among other enabling factors (e.g. antibiotics), factory farming, especially of pigs and poultry, depends on cheap grain feed. The system only works at scale if feed costs are low enough to make confinement viable relative to pasture. The Green Revolution roughly tripled global grain production between 1960 and 2000, and maize in particular became cheap enough to feed to animals at industrial volumes.
Every time I see a celebration of Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution, I can’t help but recoil a little, thinking about the unintended consequence on the tens of billions of non-human animals impacted.
If this is true, I feel conflicted in how to think about the Green Revolution. Clearly good intentions, saved hundreds of millions of humna, condemned hundreds of billions to lives of animals to pain. I feel like the EA community has the right virtues to hold this complexity.
Which comes back to the question: how should we talk about the Green Revolution?
I understand the concern, but I don’t think we gain much from vilifying scientific discovery because of what humans do with it down the line, especially a second order effect like this. I don’t think it’s super complex. Was it bad to discover nuclear fission because the USA bombed Hiroshima?
I think important discoveries well intended should be praised, and it’s a separate discussion why it was then used for ill.