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The need to eat is shared
across humanity.
But the resources needed
to produce food
are not always shared
so evenly.
It may seem simple,
innocent, and universal,
but food has a very interesting
political history.
So how can food be political?
In the post–World War II period,
as birth rates started
to skyrocket
in many parts of the world,
countries struggled
with how to feed
their exploding populations.
Starting in the 1940s--
and partly funded
by the Rockefeller Foundation--
scientists tried a new way
to produce more food.
In Mexico, they used specially
engineered seeds
to maximize the yield
of corn plants.
These seeds responded well
to artificial fertilizers
and pesticides.
With the help of irrigation,
farmers were able to produce
much more food than ever before.
These techniques were later put
to use on a massive scale.
In the 1960s and '70s,
this experiment was extended
to Asia,
with new wheat and rice
varieties.
The result was what is known
as the Green Revolution.
Now, a revolution definitely
sounds political,
but it's not political
in the way you may be thinking.
In fact, the guy who coined
the term,
a U.S. Department of State
official,
made a point to distinguish it
from other revolutions.
In a 1968 speech, he said,
"These and other developments
in the field of agriculture
"contain the makings
of a new revolution.
"It is not a violent
Red Revolution
"like that of the Soviets,
"nor is it a White Revolution
like that of the Shah of Iran.
I call it the Green Revolution."
So, as he said,
the Green Revolution was not
a military coup or an uprising,
or even a set of reforms.
It was a transfer
of technologies
that resulted
in increased crop yields,
and it revolutionized
the production, distribution,
kinds, and availability
of food
all over the world.
In fact, the foods
we eat today
are directly the result of
Green Revolution technologies.
What are other impacts,
and what was the reasoning
behind it?
The Green Revolution
had numerous impacts,
which we'll look at in a bit.
But first,
where did it come from?
Was it political?
It sure was.
And as we saw,
the Green Revolution
was part of a U.S.
State Department program,
and it was funded in part
by the Rockefeller
and Ford foundations.
In fact, some historians
argue that the Green Revolution
was engineered as a way to fight
communism during the Cold War.
And you might be wondering:
what does food have to do
with communism?
Well, apparently,
a common saying
among U.S. government officials
at the time
was, "Where hunger goes,
communism follows."
And at a time
when the American public
was against U.S. aggression
in Vietnam,
the Green Revolution
was imagined
as a peaceful, scientific
solution
to red revolutions abroad.
If people weren't hungry,
they reasoned,
they wouldn't find communism
appealing.
So even though it was a
development and aid program,
it was also deeply political,
as all such programs are.
So how did it happen?
It started
with this new technology
moving across networks
of scientists and farmers.
But it's important to see
that such transfers are not
always organic movements.
In other words,
it often takes political work
to make them happen.
You could say political work
is the "fertilizer."
In this case, scientists
and farmers from countries
like Mexico, India,
the Philippines, and Indonesia
were trained
to use these methods
and sold the equipment needed
to implement
these new techniques.
But they then adapted them to
their own local circumstances.
And even though the technologies
were first developed
in the United States,
how they worked was very local.
It took a great deal
of local infrastructure,
like dams and other
irrigation techniques,
to generate the massive amount
of water needed
to supersize
the amount of food being grown.
Scientists and farmers
had to experiment
with their local
soil conditions, climates,
and food needs
to get it to work.
And it worked in some places
more than others.
India was one place
where the Green Revolution
really took off.
In the 1960s, better living
conditions and high birth rates
helped the Indian population
grow rapidly.
Indian scientists adapted
new varieties of rice and wheat
to help feed this population.
When grown with fertilizers
and plenty of water,
they grew many more grains
per plant.
The result?
India is now one of the world's
biggest producers of rice.
But at the same time, far fewer
Indians now work in agriculture,
and the population
is quickly catching up
to the supply of rice.
And while we're focusing
on an anti-communist
Green Revolution
for the most part,
it's also important to note
that China had its own
successful Green Revolution,
but with a communist character.
In the 1970s, under the
leadership of Mao Zedong,
the Chinese used
similar technologies
to increase farming output
on communes.
But labor was organized
very differently.
The government decided
how and when people would work,
and organized
multiple households
into teams of farmers.
Military brigades enforced
this organization.
So the Green Revolution
certainly had a local character
in each location.
But we really can't overstate
the broader effects
of these green revolutions.
In Asia, between 1960 and 1990,
rice production
more than doubled
and wheat production
more than quadrupled.
On a global scale,
the Green Revolution
dramatically changed
the way food was produced,
consumed, and distributed.
Countries that had once been
importers became exporters.
Large industrial farms replaced
small organic farms.
And the owners of big farms
could afford new equipment
and costly seeds.
Seeds usually needed to be
purchased every season,
because these specially
engineered seeds
had unpredictable results
in the second generation.
But regardless of these results,
farmers often had
legal agreements
to rebuy seeds every season
from the corporations
that engineer them,
as the seeds were considered
their intellectual property.
And there were other important
global effects.
For one, people started
to think about hunger
and poverty differently.
Instead of seeing them
as unavoidable realities,
people started to think of them
as solvable problems,
and they enlisted
scientific tools,
believing that science could
provide the ultimate solutions.
And if the goal
was to feed more people,
science worked.
Millions if not billions
of people avoided starvation.
And populations soared
as a result.
But did it actually make
things better?
This is a very big debate.
There are many criticisms
of the Green Revolution,
but we're going to cover
just a few.
One big criticism is that
it is simply not sustainable.
Though it fed millions,
the population
is now even bigger,
while the resources needed
to feed that population
are dwindling.
Growing a ton of food requires
a ton of water,
which is a scarce resource
in many places.
And soil quality has suffered,
too.
Which leads us
to another criticism:
environmental degradation.
Pesticides and artificial
fertilizers are often blamed
for destroying local plant
and animal habitats,
and they're also toxic to humans
if not used correctly.
And ironically, even
with things like pesticides,
these new plants
are more susceptible
to pests and disease.
That's because
the Green Revolution
encouraged monoculture.
Monoculture is growing only one
species in a large area.
As a result,
there's less diversity,
which means
that one pest or disease
can wipe out an entire crop.
In India, for example,
there used to be over
30,000 kinds of rice grown.
Now there are fewer
than a dozen.
And the new crops
have wiped out local plants,
which were often
more nutritious.
And that brings us to the last
criticism we'll talk about:
Was the Green Revolution
a trade-off
between quality and quantity?
It certainly made it possible
to grow more food.
But did it result
in better health and nutrition?
Food security
is a major global problem,
but does more food mean
lower rates of poverty,
malnutrition, and starvation?
It's unclear.
Food is still distributed
in uneven ways,
and there are many people
still at risk
of starvation and malnutrition,
even where
the Green Revolution succeeded.
So, was the Green Revolution
political?
Definitely!
It was supported
for political reasons,
whether in America or China,
with private or public funds.
And did the Green Revolution
make things better?
The jury is out on that.
Decades later, people are still
thinking about the same issues.
Some scientists
and policy-makers
have been talking
about a new Green Revolution,
which now extends out of Asia
and into Africa.
But Africa
has its own challenges,
as its environmental conditions
make it difficult
to sustain the kind of growth
India experienced.
And the challenge
is also global.
Scientists predict
that the global population
will reach nine billion by 2050.
With the temperature rising,
the challenge is even greater
than before,
especially in countries
where climates and soil quality
are not ideal.
Can our current technological
and scientific tools
help provide healthy food
for all?
Will new innovations help us?
And will existing
political arrangements
make it possible to address
these problems on a large scale?
Only time will tell.
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