The Green Revolution – Political Dimensions of Agricultural Innovation

The Green Revolution // Antecedents

- The Green Revolution can be best characterized as an umbrella term referring to the development and subsequent
promulgation of High Yield Variety seeds [HYV] in tropical and sub-tropical agricultural environments. (Saitō, P. 17)
- HYV Seeds (or ‘miracle seeds’) initially developed in Mexico under the direction of famed agricultural scientist Norman
Borlaug (Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970) in 1954 at the Office of Special Studies. (Shiva, P. 37)
- The Office of Special Studies was created at the behest of the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico ‘Daniels’ and then U.S. Vice-
President Henry Wallace; the office of Special Studies later became known as the CIMMYT or The International Maize
and Wheat Improvement Center in 1963.
- The CIMMYT was run largely as a cooperative venture between the Rockefeller Foundation and the Government of
Mexico to conduct agricultural research.
- Based upon to the success of the CIMMYT, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations jointly established the IRRI
(International Rice Research Institute) in the Philippines in 1960 to produce HYV forms of rice.
- Both CIMMYT and IRRI were the result of a joint program of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations to launch new seeds
and new agriculture across Asia and Latin America. Subsequently the Centro International de Agriculture Tropical
(CIAT) in Colombia and the Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nicaragua were launched. (Shiva, P. 43)

The Green Revolution // History in the Indian Punjab

- Primary concern of most farmers in the Indian Punjab was to feed their families; known as subsistence farming.
- The principal crops in the region therefore tended to be food grains such as rice, wheat, millets, maize and barley as
opposed to cash crops such as meat, palm oil, fruit and vegetables. Food grains constitute 70-90% of caloric
requirements for most of the regions indigenous. (Chakravarti, P. 320)
- The first half of the twentieth century saw a series of droughts and famines, including the Bengal Famine of 1943 and
the Bihar Famine of 1966/7. The Bengal Famine is estimated to have cost 4 million lives.
- It remains a contested point whether farming on the Subcontinent is prone to systemic instabilities in geography and
methodology or whether the aforementioned famines are actually the result of disturbances in the flow of resources
and other exogenous factors. (Shiva, P. 26)
o This is important because supporters generally consider HYV seeds to be a savior of agriculture on the Subcontinent
because they counteract the inherent production flux Indian agriculture is generally beset by. (Shiva, P. 27)
o Opponents regard the introduction of HYV seeds as an act of opportunistic exploitation on behalf of the West (particularly
the United States). From this perspective, the Bihar and Bengal famine are considered unique phenomena resulting from
production and supply instabilities caused by the Second World War. Additionally, the increase in commercial agriculture
(initiated during the British Raj) subsequently forced food grain production onto poorer land, which eventually resulted in
smaller yields.
- In the literature, famines are generally considered to be proximate cause of the introduction of HYV seeds to Indian
agriculture because they provided the primary impetus for political reforms.
- Famines and the resultant food shortages created an increased political interest in food security and regional
agricultural sustainability. Raising agricultural productivity became part of the public agenda.
- This eventually led to the question ‘How can agricultural output be increased?’ in order to prevent future food crises.

Yield
Agricultural Output
Acreage
- Yield: Labour, Farming Technique, Irrigation, Fertilizers and other Inputs.
- Acreage: Aggregate land area devoted to agricultural purposes.
- Because most of the agriculturally viable land in India was occupied, the only possible way in which to increase output
was yield augmentation.
- Several attempts already made prior to the introduction of HYV varieties to improve yield. However due to particulars
of the growing environment on the Subcontinent, these were not very successful.
o Indigenous seeds also respond poorly to fertilizers and other inputs. This left little recourse besides the
eventual implementation of HYV seeds.
- Frist HYV seeds to be introduced to the subcontinent included Rice, Wheat, Maize, Jowar and Bajra. These seeds had
the following advantages over indigenous and non-modified varieties:
1. More responsive to fertilizer and higher average yield per unit of fertilizer.
2. Increased drought resistance and enhanced latitudinal range adaptation, increasing potential area of application.
 3. Initial growing period short enough that generally an additional major crop can be planted in the same
season. Resulted in a 200% - 400% increase of previous yields from indigenous seed varieties.
4. Wide scale implementation began to occur between 1966 and 1967
Figure 1: Overview of Effects of HYV Implementation on Agricultural Output, Data from the Indian Punjab (Chakravarti 1973, P. 321)

The Green Revolution // The Science Politics Connection

- The Green Revolution was regarded as a useful tool in reducing agrarian conflict by increasing rural abundance. The
Colombo Plan explicitly articulated this as a potential development philosophy to counteract what it regarded as
“incipient revolutionaries” and a potential “communist insurgency” in Asia. (Shiva, P. 14)
- The several agencies which played pivotal roles in the introduction of HYV seeds were either government agencies or
had very close ties to government agencies, either through funding entanglements or project overlap.
o Rockefeller & Ford Foundations: Involved in agricultural research since 1952 and 1953 respectively. They also
provided training and mobility compensation for Indian scientists in the methods they were developing.
o The United States Government: Provided grants, training and logistical support.
o The World Bank: Provided the requisite credit to introduce a capital intensive form of agriculture to a poor country.
- The Green Revolution represented a shift not just in agricultural methods, but in farming ideology. A largely
subsistence-oriented farming culture based on traditional bottom-up methods was replaced by a top-down, capital
intensive and input reliant agricultural methodology.
- Technological transformation of farming methods must result in widespread social change in a rural society. The Green
Revolution resulted largely in negative social impacts for the inhabitants of the areas where it was implemented.
o Dissolution of traditional hierarchical arrangements based on norms of mutual interdependence and (non-symmetric)
obligations which gave way to adversary relations based on new notions of economic interest. (Frankel, P. 38)
o Where the technology of the Green Revolution was most extensively applied, it accomplished “what a century of
disruption under colonial rule failed to achieve, the virtual elimination of the stability residuum of traditional society – the
recognition of mutual non-symmetric obligations by both the landed and the landless class.” (Shiva, P. 173)
- HYV seed proliferation led to an increase in market dependence on behalf of the Punjab farmers. The farmers had to buy
manufactured inputs and were forced to sell part of their crop to buy more inputs for the next growing cycle.
- The GR increased the development inequality between regions due to its philosophy of building on the best. Because HYV seeds
required advanced pre-existing infrastructure in order to be fully exploited (e.g. transport, irrigation, and expertise) only well-
developed regions had the opportunity to use them.
Literature
SHIVA, Vandana: The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics. Zed Books, London and New Jersey. 1993
CLEAVER, Harry M. Jr.: The Contradictions of the Green Revolution. The American Economic Review, Vol. 62, No. 1/2. Pages 177-186, March 1972
YAPA, Lakshman: What are Improved Seeds? An Epistemology of the Green Revolution. Economic Geography, Vol. 69, No. 3, July 1993
TWEETEN, Luther: The Economics of Global Food Security. Review of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 21, No. 2, Pages 473-488. Autumn – Winter, 1999
CHAKRAVARTI, A.K.: Green Revolution in India. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 63, No. 3, Pages 319-330, Sep. 1973
FRANKEL, Francine: The Political Challenge of the Green Revolution, Centre for International Studies, Princeton University, 1972
BARDHAN, Kalpana: Rural Employment, Wages & Labour Markets in India. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 2 No. 27, July 1977
PRAY, Carl E.: The Green Revolution as a Case Study in Transfer of Technology. American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 458, Technology Transfer:
New Issues, New Analysis. Pp. 68-80. November 1981
BLYN, George: The Green Revolution Revisited. Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 31, No. 4. Pp. 705-725. July 1983

S.A.B. // 27.03.2011