Green revolution - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The green revolution is a policy of transformation of agricultures of the developing countries (PED), founded mainly on the intensification and the use of varieties of cereals with high potentials of outputs. The green revolution term indicates the technological jump carried out in Agriculture during the period 1944 - 1970, following scientific progresses made during the Entre-deux-guerres. It was made possible by the development of news high-output varieties, in particular of cereals (Blé and Riz), thanks to the varietal selection. The use of the mineral Manures and the plant health products, of the mechanization, the Irrigation also contributed to it. It had as a consequence a spectacular increase in agricultural Productivité, and made it possible to avoid the catastrophic Famine S, which could have risen from the increase without precedent of the World population since 1950.

History

Mexican roots

One can date launching from the Green revolution of 1943 with the creation of the Office off Special Studies , born from collaboration between the Fondation Rockefeller and the presidential administration of Manuel Ávila Camacho with the Mexico. The predecessor of Camacho, Lázaro Cárdenas, was a partisan of the Land reform, registered in the Constitution Mexican of 1917 but forsaken by his predecessors until his election in 1934. He ties, as of his taking up the duties, an political alliance with the Mexican farming community by supporting the constitution of the country National confederation which comes to place itself in the orbit of her party. He manages in six years to redistribute more than 15 million hectares of grounds to the profit of approximately 750.000 country families.

The arrival of Ávila Camacho mark however a Net change of course. This last is especially anxious to make agriculture Mexican able to support the increasing urbanization and the industrialization of the country. It will find in its American neighbors of solids supports for this new orientation. The vice-president states-unien Henry Wallace, who perceived the ambitions of Camacho like an opportunity for the American economy and military interests, played an important role to convince the Fondation Rockefeller to work with the new Mexican government.

It is J. George Harrar, later president of the Fondation Rockefeller, which takes the head of the small structure that constitutes in the beginning the Office off Special Studies . It brings together there American geneticists and phytopathologists (Norman Borlaug, Edwin Wellhausen, William Colwell) and Mexicans whose main axes of research relate to the development of varieties of Maïs and of Blé to high potential of output; Borlaug will receive the Nobel Prize in 1970 for its work on the culture of the Blé.

In same time, the Mexican government invests massively in the infrastructures for the irrigation of the plains and semi-arid plates, and the adoption of new corn seeds is spread, mainly among the large farmers of North and the North-East. For all this period, an public agency, Conusapo, continues to protect Mexican agriculture from the variations of the worldwide market.

The increase in the production of corn appears among the most spectacular effects of the green revolution in the Mexico. If it were in continuous increase since the years 1920, it knows an important quantitative jump, due at the same time to the increase in the outputs and that of the surface cultivateds. Mexico became self-sufficing out of corn in 1951 and began the export of this cereal the following year whereas in same time its population strongly increased.

Relative successes of the “green revolution” therefore did not mean the disappearance of the Malnutrition to the Mexico. The cost of the seeds and the investments in material, prohibitory for a great number of peasants, led to an intensification of the Rural migration. Industrialization, strongly mechanized and thus little applicant in labor, which the country knows in parallel could not absorb a population which came to enlarge the rows of the shantytowns. It is as of this time as date the acceleration of the emigration in direction of the United States. The latter will legally remain allowed until 1964.

Scientific research and political voluntarism

At the origin of the green revolution the idea appears that the genetics would be the independent factor determining the level of production of the food cultures. It is what led its promoters to firstly carry their efforts on agronomic matter research. Strong of the Mexican experiment, perceived like a success by the majority of the implied political decision makers, the Fondation Rockefeller thus attempted to diffuse the idea of green revolution by the means of the establishment of new research centres throughout the world.

In Mexico, the Office off Special Studies became the international center of improvement of corn and corn, or CIMMYT (of Spanish Centro internacional of mejoramiento of maiz there trigo ) in 1963. In 1960, the Rockefeller foundations and Ford jointly established IRRI (The International rice research institute) with the Filipino , contributing to spread the use of high-output varieties in Asia. The Indonesia, the Pakistan, the Sri Lanka and other countries of Latin America and North Africa followed this way.

Later, the international Center of tropical agriculture (CIAT) was installed in Colombia, the international Center of potato to the Peru and the Research institute on the cultures of the semi-arid tropical areas (ICRISAT) in India. An international association, the Advisory International Group one Agricultural Research (CGIAR), was created in 1971, under the old people's home of the Rockfeller Foundation, to coordinate the efforts of the local groups of research out of agricultural matter. It chapote today about fifteen centers in the world.

The research undertaken by these organizations concentrated on manufacture by hybridization of high-output varieties concerning three principal cereals cultivated in the world: Rice, Corn, Corn, forsaking largely, at least initially, of cereals like the Manioc, the millets, the Sorghum or of pseudo-cereals like the Quinoa…

The effectiveness of the varieties produced by these research centres however remained subordinated to the installation of complex and expensive farming systems. Everywhere where it was carried out successfully, the green revolution thus required a voluntarist official policy which generally resulted in:

of the subsidies to the use of the chemical inputs (pesticides, fertilizers…)
a town and country planning as regards control of water (Irrigation)
of the subsidies to the purchase of the seeds
a protection of the prices of the agricultural matters

The Indian experiment

Southeast Asia

The Southeast Asia is the area of the world where the cereal production increased most quickly in the years 1970 and 1980. Countries like the Filipino Indonesia and the , considered as structurally overdrawn, almost became self-sufficing in the space of a few decades; the Vietnam became in little time the third world exporter.

In the majority of the countries of the area, the green revolution resulted by an slight increase of the outputs, and not in a massive increase in exploited surfaces. The use of the varieties developped at the point by IRRI explains this increase in outputs mainly. However, their adoption by the local peasants did not guarantee to it only these performances. To be fully effective, these varieties required a complete modification of the systems of production agricultural: drainage, mineral fertilization, chemical treatment… Only the installation by the States of this area of specific development projects allowed a substantial increase in the agricultural production.

The official intervention, assisted financially by the support of international organizations (the World Bank, Banks Asian for the development…), was thus an important condition of the success of the green revolution. Policies of subsidy to the purchase of the inputs (in particular with the Filipino and in Indonesia…) were essential for the access of its products to the farmers. The maintenance of a protection of the prices of the variations of the international market also benefitted the development from the sector by guaranteeing an regular income with the farmers confronted with heavy investments.

The green revolution, like, caused important social effects elsewhere. Contrary to the Mexico, it however did not result in an explosion of the Rural migration. As in India or the Pakistan, mechanization for example made it possible to accelerate the tillage, authorizing several cycles of harvest per annum and an intensification of the culture, strongly consuming labor.

Only the Thailand makes exception to the rule, mainly because of cultivable surfaces good wider than its neighbors. With regard to rice, the use of the varieties selected by IRRI there does not exceed 25% of the seeds used and is limited to the areas where the control of water is easiest. Mechanization resulted in a rise in the surface cultivated which is not necessarily correlated with a rise of the outputs to the hectare. The farming systems very mainly remain extensive on exploitations whose intermediate size, located between three and five hectares, is appreciably higher than in its neighbors. The Thailand was mainly based on this advantage of size to become the first world exporter of Riz.

African experiments

August 1st

Assessment

The effect on food safety

The effects of the green revolution on the food safety of the countries which implemented it were not mechanical and are difficult to apprehend. It is generally allowed that the green revolution made it possible to face a big raise of the population in the countries concerned and thus to avoid waves of chronic famines. The World population indeed increased of almost 4 billion since the beginning the green revolution. In spite of this spectacular growth of the population, an inhabitant of the Third Worlds profits on average from a caloric intake 25% more important than before his implementation. No doubt the situation pointed by the United Nations which enters 850 million people suffering from Malnutrition in the world would be even more serious without this increase in the agricultural production.

Such a reasoning is based on a reasoning néo-Malthusian which was omnipresent within the foundations promotrices of the green revolution as the declaration of Norman Borlaug at the time of the reception of its Nobel Prize attests it: “we are confronted with two opposed forces, the capacity of science on the level of the food production and the capacity of reproduction of the human being”.

The bonds between the level of the agricultural production and the food of the populations is however not direct. Work of Amartya SEN thus showed that large the historically indexed famines was not caused by a fall of the food production but by dynamic policies, socio-economic and a failure of the public action which generated inequalities in the redistribution of food. Jean Ziegler, the special protractor of the United Nations for the right to the food, estimates for its part that the current level of production of food in the world is sufficient to nourish the whole of the world population and that it is necessary to seek in the “aberrant distribution of the richnesses” the cause of the persistence of an high level of malnutrition. The Indian example is lighting on this point: following the green revolution, the country became slightly cereal exporter in a little less than one decade. The increase in the food availabilities did not prevent however in 2000 300 million Indians from continuing to suffer from the hunger, of the only fact of the weakness of their incomes.

The authors who denounce the consequences negative of the green revolution in terms of Food safety point in particular the passage of a food agriculture to an agriculture turned towards export or animal food. In certain areas of India, the green revolution thus substituted the culture of the corn, which does not enter directly the food mode of the peasants, for that of dry vegetables. In the same way, the chemical inputs, largely used in the implementation of the new systems of production agricultural, indirectly affected the food of the categories of the populations most fragile. The pesticides employed in the production of rice in India thus eliminated fish and certain wild plants from the food mode of the Indian peasants.

Social effects of the green revolution

Political impact

For a great number of observers, the initial objective of the promoters of the green revolution raised of geopolitical concerns related to the Cold war: it was a question of nourishing the population of the countries of the Tiers-monde in order to maintain social peace and of decreasing the risks of a revolution Communiste. The journalist of investigation Mark Dowie is pressed on internal documents of both large Foundation implied to stress that the concern of the Ford Foundation seemed higher in this field than that of the Fondation Rockefeller.

The green revolution caused to weaken the movements Socialistes in many countries. In India, for the Mexico, and the Filipino , its solutions, presented like primarily technological, replaced the land reforms, whose objectives were not limited to concerns concerning the level of the production. Thus, the policy option which constituted to privilege a primarily technical option, had very important social effects by stopping in many countries the redistributive movement.

Socio-economic impacts

The transition from a traditional agriculture towards the model preached by the green revolution, requiring heavy investments, led to the development of the rural credit, factor of financial embrittlement for many small farmers. With the Mexico, the debts contracted by the latter have constrained them to sell the grounds which they had received at the time of the land reforms, impelling a dynamics of Re-concentration of the ground.

In a general way, the green revolution firstly benefitted the farmers who had large farms and an access to the credit. Certain areas have, for climatic reasons, geographical or political, more easily adopted the principles of the green revolution. In India, it was thus implemented only at the North-East and in some enclaves of the south. The green revolution thus often led to a stressing of the social, economic and regional disparities and in certain countries with an acceleration of the Rural migration.

A worldwide market

The green revolution marked a decisive stage in the constitution of a mondialized agronomic market. International groups of research, often financed by the foundations of multinational corporations (Rockefeller, Ford), were in the beginning. The emergence of these new markets in the field of the seeds, manures or the pesticides mainly benefitted agro-pharmaceutical companies based in the United States. Exxon for example largely benefitted from the success of the green revolution to the Filipino by installing a vast distribution network there to sell to with it seeds, Engrais or Pesticides.

The green revolution is the most effective development model in the medium term in the Tiers-Monde. India is the most known and obvious example: indeed, it multiplied by 10 its production of corn, and by 3 its production of rice. But the green revolution knows also limits: productions ask much of water, of manure, of pesticides (of chemical elements in general), which involves less fertile grounds, and very polluted. It involved an excessive use of Pesticide S and a many impoverishment grounds

This revolution has many nonagricultural effects. It because of deep cultural changes: Rural migration massive, loss of the agricultural traditional knowledge. She was in addition shown to contribute to reduce the Biodiversité and to put the farmers under dependence of the agro-pharmaceutical Industrie.

Environmental impacts

Increase in the energy cost of the production

The green revolution generated a rise of energy necessary to the productive process. More than one third of the fossil energies consumed by agriculture is used by the only synthesis of the Engrais. The increased dependence of agriculture with regard to chemical fertilizers, the pesticides and the weedkillers is also indirectly a dependence with regard to oil. The promoters of the theory of the oil Pic fear that the future decline of the production of fossil energy leads to a fall of the agricultural production and an important rise in the price of the products of food.

The question of water

The irrigation, which largely developed following the green revolution, was at the origin of big problems of Salinisation, hydromorphie permanent ( waterlogging ) and of increase of the Ground water. The increasing salinisation can be avoided only as a practitioner a intense drainage, itself is extremely consumer in Eau.

Pesticides

The green revolution was accompanied by an increase in the use of the Pesticide S. the use of the Organochloride, a group of pesticides which includes/understands DDT and the Dieldrin, was spread on this occasion, although these substances are not easily comparable by the environment and accumulate in the food chain. The problems generated by the use of pesticides are the poisoning of the grounds, the contamination of water (in particular by the Nitrates and the appearance of stocks of Moustique S resistant to the Pesticide S, the reduction in the effectiveness of the programs anti Paludisme using DDT. In South Asia, one estimates for example that only 60% of the Nitrate S épandus on the pieces today are actually used by the plants, the remainder contributing to pollute the Ground water.

The biodiversity

While concentrating on a small number of varieties, the revolution induced an agricultural loss of Biodiversité, in particular in the local cultivars. Certain genetic properties contained since hundreds of years in certain varieties of cereals were threatened to disappear; this homogenization of the food production nourished fears on the capacities of resistance to the appearance of the new disease-causing agents. To meet these needs, of the banks of seeds, with the image of the International institute of phytogenetic resources ( International seedling genetic resources institute , IPGRI) become the International Bioversity, was made up.

The opinions diverge concerning the effects of the green revolution on the wild Biodiversité. Some advance that by increasing the outputs, the green revolution prevented an excessive expansion on not cultivated grounds. The green revolution was however often accompanied by a clear increase in the surface cultivateds. The use of the chemical Intrant S also strongly disturbed the balance of the local ecosystems.

The international community clearly recognized the negative impacts of the expansion and the intensification of agriculture through the signature of the declaration of Rio, signed in 1992 by 189 countries. One of its shutters, the Convention on biological diversity, generated many national action plans of safeguarding of the biodiversity.

Alternatives to the green revolution

Beginning of the year 1990 was characterized by a rise to power of the environmental sets of themes concerning consequences of the green revolution. These criticisms, often led to the center even of the community of the researchers, ended in the appearance of various concepts among which one can quote the “evergreen revolution” promoted in India by M.S. Swaminathan, the agriculture reasoned in France, the “écoagriculture” of the UINC (International union for the nature conservation) or the “agroecology” suggested by the CIRAD (Center of international cooperation in agronomic research for the development). This last was also made the promoter of the broader concept of “doubly green revolution” than had advanced CGIAR, the principal organization of coordonation of the green revolution. For its defenders, it “consists in passing from a logic of agricultural development founded on the control of the mediums to another, founded on complicity with the ecosystems”. The doubly green revolution for this reason intends to add “to the objectives of the green revolution those of the maintenance of the biological diversity and the impact strength of the ecosystems”. She in particular seeks to find solutions in extreme cases come up against by the green revolution in the mediums badly provided in water reserve or with weak density of population.

See too

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