GREEN REVOLUTION

The Green Revolution (not to be confused with "green" as in the environmental movement) was a dramatic increase in grain yields (especially wheat and rice) in the 1960s and 1970s, made possible by the Rockefeller Foundation's development of high-yielding wheat and rice varieties starting in the 1950s. The moral good of producing more food seems unquestionable. Indeed, Norman Borlaug (b. 1914), the scientist who spearheaded the Green Revolution, received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work. Yet the Green Revolution did spur ethical disputes over the social and environmental changes its technologies produced, especially in the developing world. Proponents argued that increased food supply benefited society generally; opponents pointed to the ways that poorer segments of societies were disproportionately hurt by the Green Revolution. In the early twenty-first century, Green Revolution technologies continue to promote conflict between those who see them as tools in service of society and those who argue that they promote injustice.

Competing Views of Development

The controversy over the social justice of the Green Revolution was apparent from the start of the Rockefeller Foundation work in Mexico. Encouraged by U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace, the Rockefeller Foundation in 1941 offered to send agricultural advisors to Mexico to help improve its wheat crop. The Rockefeller family had both a history of humanitarian work and valuable oil properties in Mexico. Both the family and Wallace were concerned about increasing social unrest in Mexico and sought solutions that would not reawaken interest in the previous Mexican administration's attempts to redistribute land to the poor (Wright 1990). The Rockefeller Foundation officers believed that they could stabilize Mexican society by increasing the supply of cheap, domestically-grown food. The Rockefeller Foundation's survey team of cutting-edge agricultural scientists, including plant breeders and agricultural chemists, unsurprisingly advocated technologies that had proved successful in the United States: the development of new, high-yielding varieties of major crops. North American farmers had profited from this system, despite the increased cost of purchasing new seed stock every year, and Rockefeller expected the same results of modernization in Mexico (Fitzgerald 1986).

Critics attacked the plan as inappropriate for small farms, which they believed ought to be the target of any agricultural improvement in Mexico. Carl Sauer, a geographer from the University of California Berkeley, argued that the plan would be disastrous for the peasant economy of Mexico, as peasant farmers would be unable to standardize on expensive new seeds. Other critics argued that by excluding experts on Mexican society from the survey team, Rockefeller risked forcing an inappropriate scientific solution on Mexico. The Rockefeller team fired back that Sauer and other critics simply wanted to keep Mexico backward, and were unwilling to let it modernize (Wright 1990).

Behind this sniping was a fundamental disagreement over how to benefit Mexican society. For Rockefeller's critics, improvement had to target economically-pressed peasants to be beneficial. Rockefeller argued Mexico had to rapidly start producing more food, using the best science and technology available. For Rockefeller, modern evoked the moral superiority of doing whatever was necessary, socially or technologically, to produce increases in the food supply. Critics argued that the science and technology should be appropriate for the majority of Mexican farmers. Both held moral commitments, but to different visions of the Mexican future.

Expected and Unexpected Consequences

Rockefeller adopted the survey team's recommendations. Borlaug's group employed traditional and novel scientific methods to produce high-yielding semidwarf wheat varieties that exceeded all expectations. Semidwarf varieties are stalky plants that can hold a heavy head of grain. These varieties, used with plentiful water, fertilizers, and pesticides, produced dramatically high crop yields. Interest in semidwarf varieties spread quickly, especially where food security was a concern. The Indian government asked Borlaug to help it develop wheat varieties for India; these were ultimately credited with preventing a major famine (Perkins 1997). Governments lauded the social good of the technology that allowed them to import less food despite growing populations and green revolution science was soon extended to other staple grains, especially rice. Rice-producing countries around the world adopted these new rice varieties as readily as had wheat producers. Those who adopted Green Revolution technologies often experienced increases in their standards of living, although in some places, government-mandated food prices sometimes undercut the economic benefits of higher yields (Leaf 1984).

The fears of critics were also realized, especially in the early years. Medium-sized and large farms could adopt the new technologies easily, and their high yields led to declining food prices. While urban populations benefited, small farmers watched the profits from their own harvests decrease. Some smaller farmers were able to adopt the technologies and improve their standards of living, but others were forced into rural labor or to move to the cities. Because people went hungry despite growing food supplies, critics argued that the Green Revolution could create food, but not relieve hunger (Sen 1981). They pointed to regional inequities, as areas suited to Green Revolution grains and favored by government attention flourished, while poorer regions fell behind. For critics, the Green Revolution failed the test of social justice (Shiva 1991).

Later, unanticipated environmental effects fed ongoing debates about social justice. The issue of monocropping highlights the environmental angle. Monocropping (producing a single crop in a field) helps produce uniform, high-yielding crops. However, it also produces microenvironments in which crops are more vulnerable to insects. Scientists responded by recommending heavy use of pesticides, with serious systemic consequences: sometimes toxic levels of pesticide exposure for farm laborers (who were often those disenfranchised by the Green Revolution), and rapid adaptation by insects requiring constant innovation and resulting in higher prices. Extensive monocropping sometimes led to less diversity in local food supplies, which critics have argued disproportionately affected the nutrition of the poor. In Green Revolution areas, the poor have come to depend almost exclusively on grains, decreasing the nutritional value of their diet (Shiva 1993). In each critique, the question of justice, whether for the poor or for future generations, is the central concern.

Reconsiderations

The attention that critics have paid to social justice, while sometimes questioned by supporters of the Green Revolution, have not fallen on deaf ears. The agency responsible for the scientific development of Green Revolution crops, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has responded vigorously. Scientists have decreased the amounts of pesticide needed, reducing risk to farm workers and lowering the cost of inputs. They increased the number of food crops for which they have developed high-yielding varieties, including some crops traditionally cultivated by the poor. Scientists have given attention to developing high yielding crops using less water, an important consideration in arid regions. In the 1990s, scientists began to research ways to introduce Green Revolution technologies to the poor regions of Africa that had been previously bypassed.

Advocates have also argued that making Green Revolution technologies socially just is not only the responsibility of scientists, but also of regional and national governments (Hazell 2003). In places where agricultural credit is accessible, more small farmers have been able to retain or expand their land and benefit from the technologies. Such efforts are not lost on critics, but neither have they quieted the criticism that Green Revolution technologies promote injustice. Supporters are equally steadfast that Green Revolution technologies produce social goods that outweigh shortcomings. A widely agreed-upon ethical judgment of the Green Revolution remains unlikely, because the complex social and environmental consequences of this technology continue to unfold.

SUZANNE M. MOON

SEE ALSO Agricultural Ethics;Food Science and Technology;Green Ideology;Modernization;Poverty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fitzgerald, Deborah. (1986). "Exporting American Agriculture: The Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico, 1943–53." Social Studies of Science 16: 457–483. Historical look at the work of the Rockefeller Foundation during their earliest interventions in Mexico, exploring the reasons that they based their recommendations to Mexico on the "best practice" of U.S. agricultural science.

Hazell, Peter B. R. (2003). "Green Revolution, Curse or Blessing?" In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, ed. Joel Mokyr. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. A critical evaluation of the economics of the Green Revolution that argues that poverty reduction through Green Revolution technologies is possible when appropriate government policies and credit programs are in place.

Leaf, Murray J. (1984). Song of Hope: The Green Revolution in a Punjab Village. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. An anthropological study of a Punjab village that explores the positive social and economic changes of the village since the introduction of Green Revolution technologies.

Perkins, John H. (1997). Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press. A comprehensive history of the science and politics of the Green Revolution focusing on wheat production.

Sen, Amartya K. (1981). Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford, UK: Clarendon. Examines connections between food availability, poverty, and the occurrence of famine. Questions whether increases in the food supply eliminate famine.

Shiva, Vandana. (1991). The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology, and Politics. Penang, Malaysia: Third World Network. Examines the socioeconomic results of the Green Revolution and argues that it does too much harm to poor communities.

Shiva, Vandana. (1993). Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology. London: Zed Press. A critical examination of the issue of monocropping, why it appeals, and its shortcomings as a model for agriculture.

Wright, Angus. (1990). The Death of Ramón González: The Modern Agricultural Dilemma. Austin: University of Texas Press. A study of agricultural change in Mexico focusing on sociopolitical background and consequences of the Green Revolution.