Passage Two

Hazardous products are being pushed on the Third World in increasing volume. There are many examples of these: pharmaceutical (处方的) drugs, contraceptives (避孕药) and pesticides banned years ago in Europe, America, or Japan but sold by companies of these same countries to the Third World; cigarettes with a far higher tar(焦油) and nicotine contents than in the rich countries. The health effects on Third World peoples are terrible. The hazardous technologies and products imported from the industrialized countries often displace local technologies and products that may be more appropriate to meet the production and consumption needs of the Third World. Labor intensive technologies that provide employment for the community and are in harmony with the environment are replaced with capital intensive modern technologies that in many instances are ecologically destructive. Appropriate products are replaced by modem products that are thrust upon the people through high powered advertising, sales promotions and pricing policy. The modem industrial system has changed the face of Third World agriculture. In many Third World societies, under the new plantation system, much of the lands formerly planted with traditional food crops have been converted into cash-crop production for export. If export prices are high, the incomes obtained could be higher for export-crop farmers; but when prices fall, as they have in recent years, the farmers are not able to buy enough food with their incomes, and also many agricultural workers lose their jobs. The so-called Green Revolution is a package program that makes it possible to grow more than one crop per year through the introduction of high-yielding seed varieties, high doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, agricultural machinery and irrigation. In many areas where this "revolution" wa9 implemented, there was an initial rise in production because more than a single crop could be produced in a year. But the corresponding rise in farmer’s incomes was soon offset by the increasing costs of imported chemical inputs and machinery as high- input agriculture only favored richer farmers who could afford to pay for the chemicals and drive out poorer farmers who could not. In addition, the high-yielding crop varieties are very susceptible to pest attacks as insects become resistant to the pesticides. Yields in some areas have dropped. Third World farmers and governments win Increasingly be at the mercy of the transnational food companies.

In paragraph 2, the first sentence means ______.