Between the years 1960 and 1980 in the USA Norman Borlaug with the help of international agricultural associations managed to obtain more productive crops through plant crosses, his motivation was always the eradication of hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. But they were not seeing the other side of the page, more and more chemical and phytosanitary fertilizers were being used, and consequently the plants were creating resistance and the fertilizers were blocked in the soil. It was in 1968 when William Gaud coined the term “Green Revolution” to describe the agricultural era that was being lived. But what is the Green Revolution? Basically increasing crop yields without increasing planting area by using more productive agricultural varieties and high-cost technologies, as well as more pesticides and fertilizers.
Today it can be understood that the Green Revolution is reaching the end of its cycle. What has brought us to this point and end of the cycle is the information and evidence of the contamination of increasingly degraded aquifers and soils without any iota of life from them, and of course the destruction of the planet.
The FAO has been warning for years that groundwater contamination is one of the most important problems in developed countries and that it can be seen more and more in developing countries. Chemical fertilizers have been used on a large scale without thinking about the consequences. Fertilizer contamination occurs when fertilizers are used in greater amounts than a crop can absorb or when they are removed by water or wind from the soil surface before they can be absorbed. The excesses are dragged by water courses or infiltrated through groundwater and this nutrient overload causes eutrophication, giving rise to a massive generation of algae that suppress other plants and consequently aquatic animals, causing a problem of incredible dimensions (a clear and current example of this is the problem of the “Mar Menor” in the Region of Murcia, south of Spain).
More and more companies that manufacture fertilizers and other agricultural inputs like us are committed to joining the new agricultural era and ending the “Green Revolution”. The goal is to provide agrosustainable solutions to the market, and not only respectful of the environment, but which in turn can repair the damage caused over so many generations. Agriculture is necessary to live as well as the health of the planet, so we must protect both simultaneously.
The research and creation of new products, understanding, respecting and contributing to natural biological cycles, contributing microbiota to the rhizosphere, is one of the key points. Products made from these specific bacteria not only help to fix nutrients, but also add value to the land where they are applied by initiating a restructuring of the soil and regenerating the original microbiota, apart from other indirect factors.
One question that may haunt the reader is how something so biologically obvious has not been applied before. Apart from the fact that the laboratory technologies for the isolation and reproduction of strains are more advanced every day and this is a clear aid for the advancement and research, indeed, these new generation bacterial products despite having a “slowness” of results with regards to traditional fertilization, they are more valued every day, since they act constantly over time once you start working with them.
If we change the agricultural model, we must also change the way we observe results and think about solutions. In the end, our goal is to fulfil our mission of reducing the addition of chemical fertilizers and helping the regeneration of soils, and therefore the health of the planet.