Green Revolution Farming: Unanticipated Consequences

The term Green Revolution was coined in the late 1960s to describe new technologies of agricultural production while differentiating them from “red” or communist revolutions. Green Revolution farming involved initiatives to raise food crop yields through modifications to plant architecture (notably wheat and rice dwarfing) and improvements in stress, disease, and pest resistance. It has its roots in Mexico in the 1940s, where research led by the agronomist Norman Borlaug produced high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat. These HYVs, coupled with increased agricultural mechanization, helped Mexico become food self-sufficient. Green Revolution farming spread worldwide in the 1960s assisted by funding from national governments and from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, which helped set up the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico and ...