| During the past three years spectacular progress has been made in increasing wheat, rice, and maize production in several of the most populous developing countries of southern Asia, where widespread famine appeared inevitable only five years ago. Most of the increase in production has resulted from increased yields of grain per hectare, a particularly important development because there is little possibility of expanding the cultivated area in the densely populated areas of Asia. The term "The Green Revolution" has been used by the popular press to describe the spectacular increase in cereal-grain production during the past three years. Perhaps the term "green revolution", as commonly used, is premature, too optimistic, or too broad in scope. Too often it seems to convey the impression of a general revolution in yields per hectare and in total production of all crops throughout vast areas comprising many countries. Sometimes it also implies that all farmers are uniformly benefited by the breakthrough in production. These implications both oversimplify and distort the facts. The only crops which have been appreciably affected up to the present time are wheat, rice, and maize. Yields of other important cereals, such as sorghums, millets, and barley, have been only slightly affected; nor has there been any appreciable increase in yield or production of the pulse or legume crops, which are essential in the diets of cereal-consuming populations. Moreover, it must be emphasized that thus far the great increase in production has been in irrigated areas. Nor have all cereal farmers in the irrigated areas adopted and benefited from the use of the new seed and the new technology. Nevertheless, the number of farmers, small as well as large, who are adopting the new seeds and new technology is increasing very rapidly, and the increase in numbers during the past three years has been phenomenal. Cereal production in the rain-fed areas still remains relatively unaffected by the impact of the green revolution, but significant change and progress are now becoming evident in several countries. Despite these qualifications, however, tremendous progress has been made in increasing cereal production in India, Pakistan, and the Philippines during the past three years. Other countries that are beginning to show significant increases in production include Afghanistan, Ceylon, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Malaya, Morocco, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey. Before attempting to evaluate the significance of the green revolution one must establish the point of view of the appraiser. The green revolution has an entirely different meaning to most people in the affluent nations of the privileged world than to those in the developing nations of the forgotten world. In the affluent, industrialized nations giant surpluses of wheat, maize, and sorghum are commonplace; cattle, swine, and poultry are fed and fattened on cereal grains; meat, milk, eggs, fruits, and vegetables are within the economic reach of most of the population; well-balanced diets are more or less automatically achieved, and cereal products constitute only a modest portion of the "daily bread". Consequently, most of the people in such societies have difficulty in comprehending and appreciating the vital significance of providing high-yielding strains of wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, and millet for the people of the developing nations. Understandably then, the majority of the urbanites in the industrialized nations have forgotten the significance of the words they learned as youngsters, "Give us this day our daily bread". They know that food comes from the supermarket, but only a few see beyond to the necessary investments, the toil, struggle, and frustrations on the farms and ranches that provide their daily bread. Since the urbanites have lost their contact with the soil, they take food for granted and fail to appreciate the tremendous efficiency of their farmers and ranchers, who, although constituting only five percent of the labor force in a country such as the United States, produce more than enough food for their nation. Even worse, urbanites often vociferously criticize their government for attempting to bring into balance the agricultural production of its farmers with the domestic and foreign market demands for farm products, and attempting thereby to provide the consumer an abundant food supply at reasonable cost and also to assure a reasonable return to the farmer and rancher. Contrasting sharply, in the developing countries represented by India, Pakistan, and most of the countries in Asia and Africa, seventy to eighty percent of the population is engaged in agriculture, mostly at the subsistence level. The land is tired, worn out, depleted of plant nutrients, and often eroded; crop yields have been low, near starvation level, and stagnant for centuries. Hunger prevails, and survival depends largely upon the annual success or failure of the cereal crops. In these nations both under-nutrition and malnutrition are widespread and are a constant threat to survival and to the attainment of the genetic potential for mental and physical development. The diet consists primarily of cereals, which provide from seventy to eighty percent of the calories and sixty-five to seventy percent of the protein intake. Animal proteins are so scarce and expensive as to be beyond the economic reach of the vast majority of the population. Although many of these nations were self-sufficient and some were exporters of cereals before the Second World War, they are now net importers, victims of population growth's outrunning agricultural production. There is little possibility in these countries of expanding the cultivated area to cope with the growing demand. The situation worsens as crop yields remain stagnant while human numbers continue to increase at frightening rates. For the underprivileged billions in the forgotten world, hunger has been a constant companion, and starvation has all too often lurked in the nearby shadows. To millions of these unfortunates, who have long lived in despair, the green revolution seems like a miracle that has generated new hope for the future. The significance and magnitude of the impact of the so-called green revolution are best illustrated by changes in cereal production in India, Pakistan, and the Philippines. In both India and Pakistan the rapid increase in yields per hectare of wheat has been the major thrust of the green revolution. Increases in rice yield also have played a major role in West Pakistan, but hitherto only a minor role in India. Increases in maize production have played a modest but significant role in expanded cereal production in both India and Pakistan; and increases in rice yields and production have been largely responsible for the change in cereal production up to now in the Philippines, Ceylon, and Indonesia. The green revolution in India and Pakistan, which is still largely the result of a breakthrough in wheat production, is neither a stroke of luck nor an accident of nature. Its success is based on sound research, the importance of which is not self-evident at first glance. For, behind the scenes, halfway around the world in Mexico, were two decades of aggressive research on wheat that not only enabled Mexico to become self-sufficient with respect to wheat production but also paved the way to rapid increase in its production in other countries. It was in Mexico that the high-yielding Mexican dwarf varieties were designed, bred, and developed. There, also, was developed the new production technology which permits these varieties, when properly cultivated, to express their high genetic grain-yield potential - in general, double or triple that of the best yielders among older, tall-strawed varieties. There are no miracles in agricultural production. Nor is there such a thing as a miracle variety of wheat, rice, or maize which can serve as an elixir to cure all ills of a stagnant, traditional agriculture. Nevertheless, it is the Mexican dwarf wheat varieties, and their more recent Indian and Pakistani derivatives, that have been the principal catalyst in triggering off the green revolution. It is the unusual breadth of adaption combined with high genetic yield potential, short straw, a strong responsiveness and high efficiency in the use of heavy doses of fertilizers, and a broad spectrum of disease resistance that has made the Mexican dwarf varieties the powerful catalyst that they have become in launching the green revolution. They have caught the farmers' fancy, and during the 1969-1970 crop season, fifty-five percent of the six million hectares sown to wheat in Pakistan and thirty-five percent of the fourteen million hectares in India were sown to Mexican varieties or their derivatives. This rapid increase in wheat production was not based solely on the use of Mexican dwarf varieties; it involved the transfer from Mexico to Pakistan and India of a whole new production technology that enables these varieties to attain their high-yield potential. Perhaps seventy-five percent of the results of research done in Mexico in developing the package of recommended cultural practices, including fertilizer recommendations, were directly applicable in Pakistan and India. As concerns the remaining twenty-five percent, the excellent adaptive research done in India and Pakistan by Indian and Pakistani scientists while the imported seed was being multiplied, provided the necessary information for modifying the Mexican procedures to suit Pakistani and Indian conditions more precisely. |
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