green revolution

green revolution

the introduction of new species of crops and new techniques leading to greater crop yields. This began in Mexico in the 1950s, and from the mid-1960s new high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat were introduced in many THIRD WORLD countries. The most noticeable applications were in the Indian subcontinent where new strains of rice enabled double-cropping, eliminating a fallow period in the agricultural cycle. For a while these innovations were seen by many as solving food-supply problems. However, new problems arose, one of the most significant being that the new strains require heavy inputs of fertilizer, pesticides and machinery For Third World countries, these can be very expensive imports, and small farmers have been unable to gain access to the credit financing necessary for full advantage to be taken. Generally a p rocess of increasing impoverishment of poor farmers has resulted, with increasing income inequalities, a concentration of landholding and variable increases in food supplies. As Griffin (1979) points out, this was an example of a technological fix approach based on assumptions that technical solutions can operate independently of the institutional environment. He sums up by saying ‘the story of the green revolution is the story of a revolution that failed’. see also INTERMEDIATE TECHNOLOGY.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000