Green Revolution

Green Revolution term referring mainly to dramatic increases in cereal-grain yields in many developing countries beginning in the late 1960s, due largely to use of genetically improved varieties. Beginning in the mid-1940s researchers in Mexico developed broadly adapted, short-stemmed, disease-resistant wheats that excelled at converting fertilizer and water into high yields. The improved seeds were instrumental in boosting Mexican wheat production and averting famine in India and Pakistan, earning the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for American plant breeder Norman E. Borlaug, leader of the Mexican wheat team. Significant though less dramatic improvements followed in corn. The Mexican program inspired a similarly successful rice-research effort in the Philippines and a network of research centers dedicated to the important food crops and environments of the developing world. By 1992 the system included 18 centers, mostly in developing countries, staffed by scientists from around the world, supported by a consortium of foundations, national governments, and international agencies. Recent research responds to criticism that the Green Revolution depends on fertilizers, irrigation, and other factors that poor farmers cannot afford and that may be ecologically harmful; and that it promotes monocultures and loss of genetic diversity.

Green Revolution Intensive plan of the 1960s to increase crop yields in developing countries by introducing higher-yielding strains of plant and new fertilizers. The scheme began in Mexico in the 1940s, and was successfully introduced in parts of India, se Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Green Revolution A term used to describe the increased agricultural productivity due to new agricultural methods such as pesticides, irrigation, and better tools. As part of the Green Revolution, more resistant crops were developed, such as the rice variety IR-36, produced by the UN International Rice Research Institute in 1976, which became one of the world's most widely grown crops in the 1980s. While the Green Revolution increased the food supply for a growing population in the developing world, it also increased income inequality through favouring capital-intensive farming methods.