World Changing Invention: The Green Revolution

One of the key inventions that truly changed the world and made a huge impact was the Green Revolution. If it wasn't for Norman Borlaug's incredible innovations starting the 1930's, Thomas Malthus' prediction of our population's fate would be a real possibility to us. Malthus' theory proposed that the human population grows at an exponential rate (which is true) while food production only grows at an arithmetic rate (which WAS true). With that idea in mind, he stated that there was no way that food production would be able to withstand this population growth leaving the world in a state which would make it impossible for us to survive. He said that this would lead to either mass starvation or mass disease. But this awful idea can be put aside (for now at least) all thanks to Borlaug and his contributions.

The Green Revolution was basically a technological transfer of the agriculture world that increased production worldwide, effecting the developing world in a hugely impactful way. This transition saw the wide acceptance and use of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, new and improved management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, GMO's, more efficient machines, and much much more. As this transition occurred agriculture production boomed and Malthus' hypothesis and threat began to drift away as our world came into a time where food security was a much bigger possibility. This revolution is credited to saving over a billion people from starvation, which is why Borlaug truly earned his Nobel Peace Prize.