The ‘green revolution’ in South Asian ricefields: Environment and production

Farmer, B. H.

doi:10.1080/00220387908421735

Cited by 25 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…In some states, notably Punjab, agricultural productivity more than doubled as a result of this revolution. Since then, the rate of growth in agricultural productivity has stalled (Farmer 1979(Farmer , 1986. Agriculture continues to be the prime mover of the state's economy supporting 62% of the population and contributing 13% of the state's income as of 2004 -2005.…”

Section: Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 98%

A bottom-up approach towards the assessment of ecological footprints and biocapacity

Karuppannan

Sekar

2012

Local Environment

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The concept of ecological footprint (EF) assessment embeds into the broader concept of sustainable development, relating directly to quality of life and maintaining the natural constraints of the global ecosystem. EFs relate to the balance between the Earth's biocapacity and consumption, measured as land equivalence in global hectares per capita. The majority of studies relating to EF assessments have adopted a top-down methodology in order to assess national and regional EFs. Furthermore, these studies are mainly based upon national accounts of input, output and trade; information which is readily available for most countries, and the EFs usually require an assessment of equivalent land area per capita to maintain the current levels of consumption. Since its inception in the mid-1990s, the EF methodology has been refined and has been widely adopted by many countries and governments as a tool to measure biocapacity, or, the consumption of resources. In this paper, we present a bottom-up methodology to measure the EF of a rural region (near Chennai) in southern India. Advantages and limitations of this approach are then discussed through comparisons with regional and national assessments.

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Section: Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 98%

A bottom-up approach towards the assessment of ecological footprints and biocapacity

Karuppannan

Sekar

2012

Local Environment

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“…Social scientists recognised that the first MVs were not well-adapted to rainfed rice environments (Brown, 1970) and the need to develop varieties suitable for Bangladesh where the main rice crop was grown in the wet season (Farmer, 1979). 10 Fifty per cent of the Aman crop was grown where water depth was below 30 cm (shallow rainfed), and 40 per cent above 30 cm (deepwater) (Huke, 1988).…”

Section: Misunderstood Technology?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first MVs met neither of these requirements. Some social scientists were optimistic that rice breeders could develop MVs suitable for rainfed environments (Farmer, 1979), while others thought that the only solution was to expand the area under irrigation (Falcon, 1970). Still others took this pessimism a stage further.…”

Section: Misunderstood Technology?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nine T. Aman varieties had one or more BR parents, which meant they incorporated germplasm from previous BR crosses (p 4 0.013) Thus, the breeding programme for rainfed rice took a greater share of BRRI's research resources. BRRI also promoted rainfed rice by hosting international conferences on deepwater rice in 1974 and photoperiod-sensitive rice in 1977 (BRRI, 1980;Farmer, 1979). A new Cropping Systems Research Division was established in 1974.…”

Section: Misunderstood Technology?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why were So Many Social Scientists Wrong about the Green Revolution? Learning from Bangladesh

Orr

2012

The Journal of Development Studies

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Most social scientists once took a negative view of the socioeconomic consequences of the Green Revolution. Events have since proved them wrong. Using Bangladesh as an example, we offer three reasons why social scientists were mistaken. One is the focus on village studies at the expense of nationally representative surveys. Another is insufficient appreciation of the technical limits of the new rice technology. The third is a misleading model of agrarian change. The inability of village studies to validate generalisations, the reluctance to abandon the historical model of de-peasantisation, and opposing beliefs about how to evaluate socioeconomic consequences created a Rashomon Effect that made the controversy hard to resolve. Convictions are greater enemies of truth than lies. (Nietzsche) Debate over the Green Revolution-the spread of high-yielding varieties of rice and wheatonce dominated writing on rural development. At the centre of this debate were the economic and social consequences of new varieties of rice in south Asia. Initial optimism about 'miracle seeds' was short-lived (Brown, 1970). For the next 20 years, most social science writing about the consequences of the Green Revolution was critical (Farmer, 1977; Griffin, 1979; Pearse, 1980). Defenders of the Green Revolution came chiefly from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) that developed the new varieties (IRRI, 1975). 1 Only in the late 1980s did some critics have second thoughts. Return visits showed that earlier fears were largely unjustified (Hazell and Ramaswamy, 1991). With the recantation by a prominent critic (Lipton with Longhurst, 1989), mainstream social science finally took a positive view of the Green Revolution. Summarised, the critics' arguments went as follows. 2 True, there was nothing in the new seeds themselves that favoured big farmers. But to produce higher yields, they needed expensive inputs like fertiliser and irrigation. Big farmers could afford these inputs, but small farmers needed credit. Attempts to provide small farmers with credit through cooperative societies failed, however, because these were captured by big farmers. Hence, small farmers were denied access to the new rice technology. Sharecroppers, who shared half the yield with their landlord yet paid the full cost of inputs, had even less incentive to adopt the new seeds. As a result, the main users of the new technology were big farmers. To maximise profits from the new rice technology, big farmers evicted their sharecroppers and started to farm for themselves with hired labour.

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“…Examining these shifts is important today because interest in building agricultural capacity in Africa often invokes successes associated with the Green Revolution strategy in South Asia. However, in hindsight, it is crucial to distinguish the original project from significant temporal and global shifts in the political economy, and from the increasing acknowledgment of the economic, social and ecological costs of the Green Revolution for producers, communities and countries (Falcon 1967; Falcon 1970; Cleaver 1972; Farmer 1979; Pearce 1980; Byerlee 1992; Pingali and Raney 2005). Also specific to the Green Revolution strategy was that it was institutionalized through leadership by public‐sector research and extension agencies with broad public‐sector investments, the building of capacity among national research institutions and subsidies, whereas the current strategy retains its productionist orientation, but is now implemented under a global market‐based system of production characterized by an expansion of the role of the transnational private sector, particularly in life sciences research (World Bank 2008, hereafter referred to as WDR08 ; Brooks 2011).…”

Section: Situating Contemporary Agricultural Research: a Brief Genealmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of International Assessments: The IAASTD Process, Reception and Significance

Feldman¹,

Biggs²

2011

Journal of Agrarian Change

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This paper explores the career of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology and Development (IAASTD) from its inception, the publishing of its reports, and its place in ongoing debates on global agriculture, food security, poverty reduction, social equity and sustainable development. We highlight the disputes and disruptions that characterize the IAASTD process and attempts to marginalize its findings. Following a brief review of the history of the Assessment and of the social construction of scientific knowledges, we consider five processes that expose the hierarchies and contestations that shape ongoing debates. We reveal how conflicts within IAASTD and between IAASTD and its sponsors cannot be dismissed as either technical or managerial, but instead showcase the fragility of claims that privilege productivity increases over other relations in agricultural practice. We conclude with a challenge to understanding agricultural change and its future that builds on social, ecological and political relations as constitutive rather than as exogenous to research and policy formation.

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The ‘green revolution’ in South Asian ricefields: Environment and production

Cited by 25 publications

References 8 publications

A bottom-up approach towards the assessment of ecological footprints and biocapacity

A bottom-up approach towards the assessment of ecological footprints and biocapacity

Why were So Many Social Scientists Wrong about the Green Revolution? Learning from Bangladesh

The Politics of International Assessments: The IAASTD Process, Reception and Significance

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