Green Revolution

The green revolution can refer to any major and innovative change in agricultural productivity, but more commonly the term is used to identify the radical changes in agricultural productivity that occurred in the middle and late decades of the 20th century. Historians sometimes speak of three agricultural revolutions. The first was prehistoric and occurred when humans first established relatively permanent settlements in which domesticated animals and farming replaced hunting and gathering as the primary food production. The second, beginning in the late 18th century, was fueled by advances in mechanical technology, land reform, as well as better understanding of animal breeding and crop rotation. The resulting revolutionary increase in productivity provided food for the exploding urban centers of the Industrial Revolution. In each of these first two agricultural revolutions, the growth in food production was caused primarily by a growth in the amount of land under cultivation.

The third revolution, what is more typically identified as the green revolution, occurred in the latter half of the 20th century when advances in plant genetics created higher-yielding varieties of crops, chemical fertilizers increased fertility, pesticides decreased losses, and industrial production methods and technology increased efficiency. The resultant increase in agricultural productivity was indeed revolutionary. Unlike the first two agricultural revolutions, the green revolution was fueled by increasing productivity from land already under cultivation rather than an increase in cultivated land area itself.

By the middle of the 20th century, population growth, especially within the world's poorest countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, threatened to overwhelm agricultural production. At mid-century, Mexico, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, embarked on a program designed to increase agricultural production of grains such as wheat and rice. Through a combination of innovative plant breeding and improved farm technologies, Mexico went from a wheat importer to a wheat exporter within a decade. American scientist Norman Borlaug was credited with much of this work, and for this he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

This green revolution relied heavily on the creation of hybrid varieties that produced significantly improved yields per plant. Hybrids were developed that were better able to absorb fertilizers and nutrients, better adapted to local climate conditions, better able to resist pests, and were easier to grow, harvest, and transport.

Advances in agricultural and mechanical technologies contributed significantly to this revolution as well. While mechanized cultivation and harvesting had existed for several decades, by the middle of the 20th century this technology provided major and unprecedented improvements in cultivating, planting, weeding, fertilizing, and harvesting crops. New chemical fertilizers increased crop yields significantly, and new [Page 1039]pesticides and herbicides reduced crop loss proportionately. Improved irrigation techniques contributed much to this revolution as well.

These technological advances resulted in an increase in agricultural productivity that was truly revolutionary. Yet these scientific and technological changes created social and ethical challenges that, if anything, have only increased over time. These present controversies have an historical precedent.

In 1798, early enough in the midst of the second agricultural revolution that its effects were not yet understood, economist Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society. Malthus famously predicted that population, advancing geometrically, was fast outpacing the food production, which advances arithmetically. Malthus predicted that poverty, famine, disease, and conflict would inevitably result unless humans consciously took steps to control population. Malthus failed to realize that he was living in the midst of the very agricultural revolution that would falsify his predictions.

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