Green Revolution refers to a series of research, development,
and technology transfer initiatives, occurring between the
1940s and the late 1970s, that
increased agriculture production
around the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s.[1] The initiatives, led by Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution" credited with saving
over a billion people from
starvation, involved the
development of high-yielding
varieties of cereal grains,
expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of
management techniques,
distribution of hybridized seeds,
synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers. The term "Green Revolution" was
first used in 1968 by former United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) director William Gaud, who noted the spread of the new
technologies and said, "These and other
developments in the field of
agriculture contain the
makings of a new revolution.
It is not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution."[2] History The agricultural development that
began in Mexico by Norman Borlaug in 1943 (based on Nazareno Strampelli's studies) had been judged as a success and the Rockefeller Foundation sought to spread it to other nations. The
Office of Special Studies in Mexico
became an informal international
research institution in 1959, and in
1963 it formally became CIMMYT, The International Maize and
Wheat Improvement Center. In 1961 India was on the brink of mass famine.[3] Borlaug was invited to India by the adviser to
the Indian minister of agriculture M. S. Swaminathan. Despite bureaucratic hurdles imposed by
India's grain monopolies, the Ford Foundation and Indian government collaborated to
import wheat seed from CIMMYT. Punjab was selected by the Indian government to be the first site to
try the new crops because of its
reliable water supply and a
history of agricultural success.
India began its own Green
Revolution program of plant breeding, irrigation development, and financing of agrochemicals.[4] India soon adopted IR8 – a semi-
dwarf rice variety developed by
the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) that could produce more grains of rice per plant
when grown with certain
fertilizers and irrigation. In 1968,
Indian agronomist S.K. De Datta
published his findings that IR8 rice
yielded about 5 tons per hectare with no fertilizer, and almost 10
tons per hectare under optimal
conditions. This was 10 times the yield of traditional rice.[5] IR8 was a success throughout Asia, and
dubbed the "Miracle Rice". IR8 was
also developed into Semi-dwarf IR36. Wheat yields in developing countries, 1950 to 2004, kg/HA baseline 500 In the 1960s, rice yields in India
were about two tons per hectare;
by the mid-1990s, they had risen
to six tons per hectare. In the
1970s, rice cost about $550 a ton;
in 2001, it cost under $200 a ton. [6] India became one of the world's most successful rice
producers, and is now a major rice
exporter, shipping nearly
4.5 million tons in 2006. IR8 and the Philippines In 1960, the Government of the
Republic of the Philippines with Ford and Rockefeller Foundations
established IRRI (International
Rice Research Institute). A rice
crossing between Dee-Geo-woo-
gen and Peta was done at IRRI in
1962. In 1966, one of the breeding lines became a new cultivar, IR8. [7] IR8 required the use of fertilizers and pesticides, but
produced substantially higher
yields than the traditional
cultivars. Annual rice production
in the Philippines increased from
3.7 to 7.7 million tons in two decades.[8] The switch to IR8 rice made the Philippines a rice
exporter for the first time in the 20th century.[9] But the heavy pesticide use reduced the number
of fish and frog species found in rice paddies.[10] CGIAR In 1970, foundation officials
proposed a worldwide network of
agricultural research centers
under a permanent secretariat.
This was further supported and
developed by the World Bank; on 19 May 1971, the Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research was established, co-sponsored by the
FAO, IFAD and UNDP. CGIAR, has
added many research centers
throughout the world. CGIAR has responded, at least in
part, to criticisms of Green
Revolution methodologies. This
began in the 1980s, and mainly
was a result of pressure from donor organizations.[11] Methods like Agroecosystem Analysis and
Farming System Research have
been adopted to gain a more
holistic view of agriculture.
Methods like Rapid Rural Appraisal
and Participatory Rural Appraisal have been adopted to help
scientists understand the
problems faced by farmers and
even give farmers a role in the
development process. Problems in Africa There have been numerous
attempts to introduce the
successful concepts from the
Mexican and Indian projects into Africa.[12] These programs have generally been less successful.
Reasons cited include widespread
corruption, insecurity, a lack of
infrastructure, and a general lack
of will on the part of the
governments. Yet environmental factors, such as the availability of
water for irrigation, the high
diversity in slope and soil types in
one given area are also reasons
why the Green Revolution is not so successful in Africa.[13] A recent program in western
Africa is attempting to introduce a
new high-yield variety of rice
known as "New Rice for Africa" (NERICA). NERICAs yield about 30% more rice under
normal conditions, and can double
yields with small amounts of
fertilizer and very basic irrigation.
However the program has been
beset by problems getting the rice into the hands of farmers, and to
date the only success has been in Guinea where it currently accounts for 16% of rice cultivation.[14] After a famine in 2001 and years
of chronic hunger and poverty, in
2005 the small African country of Malawi launched the Agricultural Input Subsidy Program by which
vouchers are given to smallholder
farmers to buy subsidized
nitrogen fertilizer and maize
seeds. Within its first year, the
program was reported with extreme success, producing the
largest maize harvest of the
country's history; enough to feed
the country with tons of maize left
over. The program has advanced
yearly ever since. Various sources claim that the program has been
an unusual success, hailing it as a "miracle".[15] Agricultural production and
food security Technologies New varieties of wheat and other grains were instrumental to the green revolution. The Green Revolution spread
technologies that had already
existed before, but had not been
widely used outside industrialized
nations. These technologies
included modern irrigation projects, pesticides, synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and improved crop varieties developed through
the conventional, science-based
methods available at the time. The novel technological
development of the Green
Revolution was the production of
novel wheat cultivars. Agronomists bred cultivars of maize, wheat, and rice that are
generally referred to as HYVs or
“high-yielding varieties”. HYVs
have higher nitrogen-absorbing
potential than other varieties.
Since cereals that absorbed extra nitrogen would typically lodge, or
fall over before harvest, semi-
dwarfing genes were bred into their genomes. A Japanese dwarf wheat cultivar (Norin 10 wheat), which was sent to Washington,
D.C. by Cecil Salmon, was instrumental in developing Green
Revolution wheat cultivars. IR8,
the first widely implemented HYV
rice to be developed by IRRI, was
created through
an Indonesian variety named “Peta” and a Chinese variety
named “Dee-geo-woo-gen.” With advances in molecular genetics, the mutant genes responsible for Arabidopsis thaliana genes (GA 20-oxidase, [16]ga1,[17]ga1-3[18]), wheat reduced-height genes (Rht)[19] and a rice semidwarf gene (sd1) [20] were cloned. These were identified as gibberellin biosynthesis genes or cellular signaling component genes. Stem growth in the mutant background
is significantly reduced leading to
the dwarf phenotype. Photosynthetic investment in the stem is reduced dramatically as
the shorter plants are inherently
more stable mechanically.
Assimilates become redirected to
grain production, amplifying in
particular the effect of chemical fertilizers on commercial yield. HYVs significantly outperform
traditional varieties in the
presence of adequate irrigation,
pesticides, and fertilizers. In the
absence of these inputs,
traditional varieties may outperform HYVs. Therefore,
several authors have challenged
the apparent superiority of HYVs
not only compared to the
traditional varieties alone, but by
contrasting the monocultural system associated with HYVs with
the polycultural system associated with traditional ones.[21] Production increases Cereal production more than
doubled in developing nations between the years 1961–1985.[22] Yields of rice, maize, and wheat
increased steadily during that period.[22] The production increases can be attributed
roughly equally to irrigation,
fertilizer, and seed development,
at least in the case of Asian rice. [22] While agricultural output
increased as a result of the Green
Revolution, the energy input to
produce a crop has increased faster,[23] so that the ratio of crops produced to energy input
has decreased over time. Green
Revolution techniques also
heavily rely on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, some of which must be developed from fossil fuels,
making agriculture increasingly
reliant on petroleum products. [24] Proponents of the Peak Oil theory fear that a future decline in
oil and gas production would lead
to a decline in food production or
even a Malthusian catastrophe. [25] World population 1950–2010 Effects on food security Main article: Food security The effects of the Green
Revolution on global food security are difficult to assess because of
the complexities involved in food
systems. The world population has grown by about four billion since the
beginning of the Green Revolution
and many believe that, without
the Revolution, there would have
been greater famine and malnutrition. India saw annual wheat production rise from 10
million tons in the 1960s to 73 million in 2006.[26] The average person in the developing
world consumes roughly 25%
more calories per day now than before the Green Revolution.[22] Between 1950 and 1984, as the
Green Revolution transformed
agriculture around the globe,
world grain production increased by over 250%.[27] The production increases fostered
by the Green Revolution are often
credited with having helped to
avoid widespread famine, and for feeding billions of people.[28] There are also claims that the
Green Revolution has decreased
food security for a large number
of people. One claim involves the
shift of subsistence-oriented
cropland to cropland oriented towards production of grain for
export or animal feed. For
example, the Green Revolution
replaced much of the land used
for pulses that fed Indian peasants for wheat, which did not make up
a large portion of the peasant diet.[29] Criticism Food security Malthusian criticism Some criticisms generally involve
some variation of the Malthusian principle of population. Such
concerns often revolve around the
idea that the Green Revolution is unsustainable,[30] and argue that humanity is now in a state of overpopulation with regards to the sustainable carrying capacity and ecological demands on the Earth. Although 36 million people die
each year as a direct or indirect
result of hunger and poor nutrition,[31] Malthus' more extreme predictions have
frequently failed to materialize. In
1798 Thomas Malthus made his
prediction of impending famine. [32] The world's population had doubled by 1923 and doubled
again by 1973 without fulfilling
Malthus' prediction. Malthusian Paul R. Ehrlich, in his 1968 book The Population Bomb, said that "India couldn't possibly feed two
hundred million more people by
1980" and "Hundreds of millions of
people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs."[32] Ehrlich's warnings failed to
materialize when India became
self-sustaining in cereal
production in 1974 (six years
later) as a result of the
introduction of Norman Borlaug's dwarf wheat varieties.[32] M. King Hubbert's prediction of world petroleum production rates. Modern agriculture is totally reliant on petroleum energy.[33] Since supplies of oil and gas are
essential to modern agriculture techniques,[34] a fall in global oil supplies could cause spiking food prices in the coming decades.[35] Famine To some modern Western
sociologists and writers,
increasing food production is not
synonymous with increasing food
security, and is only part of a
larger equation. For example, Harvard professor Amartya Sen claimed large historic famines were not caused by decreases in
food supply, but by socioeconomic
dynamics and a failure of public action.[36] However, economist Peter Bowbrick disputes Sen's
theory, arguing that Sen relies on
inconsistent arguments and
contradicts available information,
including sources that Sen himself cited.[37] Bowbrick further argues that Sen's views coincide with that
of the Bengal government at the time of the Bengal famine of 1943, and the policies Sen advocates failed to relieve the famine.[37] Quality of diet Some have challenged the value
of the increased food production
of Green Revolution agriculture. Miguel A. Altieri, (a pioneer of agroecology and peasant-
advocate), writes that the
comparison between traditional
systems of agriculture and Green
Revolution agriculture has been
unfair, because Green Revolution agriculture produces monocultures of cereal grains, while traditional agriculture
usually incorporates polycultures.[citation needed] These monoculture crops are
often used for export, feed for
animals, or conversion into
biofuel. According to Emile Frison
of Bioversity International, the Green Revolution has also led to a
change in dietary habits, as fewer
people are affected by hunger and
die from starvation, but many are
affected by malnutrition such as iron or vitamin-A deficiencies.[13] Frison further asserts that almost
60% of yearly deaths of children
under age five in developing
countries are related to malnutrition.[13] High-yield rice (HYR), introduced
since 1964 to poverty-ridden
Asian countries, such as the Philippines, was found to have inferior flavor and be more
glutinous and less savory than
their native varieties.[citation needed] This caused its price to be lower than the average market value.[38] In the Philippines the introduction
of heavy pesticides to rice
production, in the early part of
the Green Revolution, poisoned
and killed off fish and weedy
green vegetables that traditionally coexisted in rice paddies. These were nutritious food sources for many poor
Filipino farmers prior to the
introduction of pesticides, further impacting the diets of locals.[39] Political impact A major critic[citation needed] of the Green Revolution, U.S.
investigative journalist Mark Dowie, writes:[citation needed] The primary objective of the
program was geopolitical: to
provide food for the populace
in undeveloped countries and
so bring social stability and
weaken the fomenting of communist insurgency. Citing internal Foundation
documents, Dowie states that the
Ford Foundation had a greater
concern than Rockefeller in this area.[40] There is significant evidence that
the Green Revolution weakened
socialist movements in many
nations. In countries such as India,
Mexico, and the Philippines,
technological solutions were sought as an alternative to
expanding agrarian reform initiatives, the latter of which
were often linked to socialist politics.[41] Socioeconomic impacts The transition from traditional
agriculture, in which inputs were
generated on-farm, to Green
Revolution agriculture, which
required the purchase of inputs,
led to the widespread establishment of rural credit
institutions. Smaller farmers often
went into debt, which in many cases results in a loss of their farmland.[11][42] The increased level of mechanization on larger
farms made possible by the Green
Revolution removed a large
source of employment from the rural economy.[11] Because wealthier farmers had better
access to credit and land, the
Green Revolution increased class
disparities. The rich–poor gap
widened due to that. Because
some regions were able to adopt Green Revolution agriculture
more readily than others (for
political or geographical reasons),
interregional economic disparities
increased as well. Many small
farmers are hurt by the dropping prices resulting from increased
production overall.[citation needed] However, large-scale farming
companies only account for less
than 10% of the total farming
capacity. The new economic difficulties of
small holder farmers and landless
farm workers led to increased rural-urban migration. The increase in food production led to
a cheaper food for urban dwellers,
and the increase in urban
population increased the potential
for industrialization.[citation needed] Globalization In the most basic sense, the Green
Revolution was a product of globalization as evidenced in the creation of international
agricultural research centers that
shared information, and with
transnational funding from
groups like the Rockefeller
Foundation, Ford Foundation, and United States Agency for
International Development (USAID). Additionally, the inputs
required in Green Revolution
agriculture created new markets
for seed and chemical
corporations, many of which were
based in the United States. For example, Standard Oil of New Jersey established hundreds of distributors in the Philippines to
sell agricultural packages
composed of HYV seed, fertilizer, and pesticides.[citation needed] Environmental impact Increased use of irrigation played a major role in the green revolution. Pesticides Green Revolution agriculture
relies on extensive use of pesticides, which are necessary to limit the high levels of pest damage that inevitably occur in monocropping – the practice of producing or growing one single
crop over a wide area. Biodiversity The spread of Green Revolution
agriculture affected both
agricultural biodiversity and wild biodiversity.[39] There is little disagreement that the Green
Revolution acted to reduce
agricultural biodiversity, as it
relied on just a few high-yield
varieties of each crop. This has led to concerns about the
susceptibility of a food supply to
pathogens that cannot be
controlled by agrochemicals, as
well as the permanent loss of
many valuable genetic traits bred into traditional varieties over
thousands of years. To address
these concerns, massive seed
banks such as Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research’s (CGIAR) International Plant Genetic Resources Institute
(now Bioversity International) have been established (see Svalbard Global Seed Vault). There are varying opinions about
the effect of the Green Revolution
on wild biodiversity. One
hypothesis speculates that by
increasing production per unit of
land area, agriculture will not need to expand into new,
uncultivated areas to feed a growing human population.[43] However, land degradation and
soil nutrients depletion have
forced farmers to clear up
formerly forested areas in order to keep up with production.[44] A counter-hypothesis speculates
that biodiversity was sacrificed
because traditional systems of
agriculture that were displaced
sometimes incorporated practices
to preserve wild biodiversity, and because the Green Revolution
expanded agricultural
development into new areas
where it was once unprofitable or
too arid. For example, the
development of wheat varieties tolerant to acid soil conditions
with high aluminium content,
permitted the introduction of
agriculture in sensitive Brazilian ecosystems as Cerrado semi- humid tropical savanna and Amazon rainforest in the geoeconomic macroregions of Centro-Sul and Amazônia.[43] Before the Green Revolution,
other Brazilian ecosystems were
also significantly damaged by
human activity, such as the once
1st or 2nd main contributor to
Brazilian megadiversity Atlantic Rainforest (above 85% of deforestation in the 1980s, about
95% after 2010s) and the
important xeric shrublands called Caatinga mainly in the Northeastern Brazil (about 40% in the 1980s, about 50% after 2010s
— deforestation of the Caatinga
biome is generally associated with
greater risks of desertification). Nevertheless, the world
community has clearly
acknowledged the negative
aspects of agricultural expansion
as the 1992 Rio Treaty, signed by 189 nations, has generated
numerous national Biodiversity Action Plans which assign significant biodiversity loss to
agriculture's expansion into new
domains. Health impact The consumption of the pesticides used to kill pests by humans in some cases may be increasing the
likelihood of cancer in some of the
rural villages using them. Poor
farming practices including non-
compliance to usage of masks and
over-usage of the chemicals compound this situation.[45] In 1989, WHO and UNEP estimated
that there were around 1 million
human pesticide poisonings
annually. Some 20,000 (mostly in
developing countries) ended in
death, as a result of poor labeling, loose safety standards etc.[46] Pesticides and cancer Long term exposure to pesticides
such as organochlorines, creosote, and sulfate have been correlated with higher cancer rates and
organochlorines DDT, chlordane, and lindane as tumor promoters in animals.[citation needed] Contradictory epidemiologic
studies in humans have linked
phenoxy acid herbicides or
contaminants in them with soft tissue sarcoma (STS) and malignant lymphoma, organochlorine insecticides with
STS, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), leukemia, and, less consistently, with cancers of the lung and breast, organophosphorous compounds with NHL and leukemia, and
triazine herbicides with ovarian cancer.[47][48] Punjab case See also: Green Revolution in India The Indian state of Punjab pioneered green revolution
among the other states
transforming India into a food- surplus country.[49] The state is witnessing serious consequences
of intensive farming using
chemicals and pesticide. A
comprehensive study conducted
by Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) has underlined the direct relationship between
indiscriminate use of these
chemicals and increased incidence of cancer in this region.[50] An increase in the number of cancer
cases has been reported in several
villages including Jhariwala,
Koharwala, Puckka, Bhimawali, and Khara.[50] Environmental activist Vandana Shiva has written extensively about the social, political and
economic impacts of the Green
Revolution in Punjab. She claims
that the Green Revolution's
reliance on heavy use of chemical
inputs and monocultures has resulted in water scarcity,
vulnerability to pests, and
incidents of violent conflict and social marginalization.[51] In 2009, under a Greenpeace Research Laboratories
investigation, Dr Reyes Tirado,
from the University of Exeter , UK conducted the study in 50 villages
in Muktsar, Bathinda and Ludhiana districts revealed chemical, radiation and biological toxicity
rampant in Punjab. Twenty
percent of the sampled wells
showed nitrate levels above the
safety limit of 50 mg/l, established
by WHO, the study connected it with high use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.[52] With increasing poisoning of the soil,
the region once hailed as the
home to the Green Revolution, now due to excessive use of
chemical fertilizer, is being termed
by one columnist as the "Other Bhopal".[53] Organic farming About four decades after the
Green Revolution widely helped
the world to be able to produce
food in sufficient levels, a small
percentage of farmers in India have chosen to employ organic farming methods in response to side effects from their adoption of modern agriculture techniques. [54] Norman Borlaug's response to
criticism He dismissed certain claims of
critics, but did take other concerns
seriously and stated that his work
has been: "a change in the right
direction, but it has not
transformed the world into a Utopia".[55] Of environmental lobbyists he
said: "some of the environmental
lobbyists of the Western
nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical
sensation of hunger. They do
their lobbying from
comfortable office suites in
Washington or Brussels...If they lived just one month
amid the misery of the
developing world, as I have
for fifty years, they'd be crying
out for tractors and fertilizer
and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable
elitists back home were trying
to deny them these things".
