Micro(soft) managing a ‘green revolution’ for Africa: The new donor culture and international agricultural development

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 180-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Schurman
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
International Agricultural Development

scholarly journals Meeting World Food Needs: Lessons of the Green Revolution

1982 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-111
Author(s):  
D. R. MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Research Program ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
Genetic Material ◽  
Appropriate Technology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Food Needs ◽  
International Agricultural Development ◽  
Agriculture Development ◽  
Successful Production

The GREEN REVOLUTION has been offered as an example of both what to do and what not to do as international agriculture development. An appraisal is made of the benefits and consequences of the GREEN REVOLUTION for both wheat and rice. The history of the GREEN REVOLUTION is traced to its origins in pre-war Japan for both its concept and as the source of genetic material. The successful “production technology” approach of the wheat research program in Mexico is compared to the “appropriate technology” of the less successful maize research program. Lessons are drawn from the experience of the GREEN REVOLUTION that may prove helpful when planning or evaluating international agricultural development projects.

The Deterioration of the Food Situation in the Third World and the Capitalist System

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-262
Author(s):  
Ernest Feder
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Third World ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Staple Foods ◽  
The Third World

Hunger and malnutrition are today associated with the capitalist system. The evidence points to a further deterioration of the food situation in the Third World in the foreseeable future, as a result of massive capital and technology transfers from the rich capitalist countries to the underdeveloped agricultures operated by transnational concerns or private investors, with the active support of development assistance agencies such as the World Bank. Contrary to the superficial predictions of the World Bank, for example, poverty is bound to increase and the purchasing power of the masses must decline. Particular attention must be paid to the supply of staple foods and the proletariat. This is threatened by a variety of factors, attributable to the operation of the capitalist system. Among them are the senseless waste of Third World resources caused by the foreign investors' insatiable thirst for the quick repatriation of super-profits and the increasing orientation of Third World agricultures toward high-value or export crops (which are usually the same), an orientation which is imposed upon them by the industrial countries' agricultural development strategies. Even self-sufficiency programs for more staple foods, such as the ill-reputed Green Revolution, predictably cannot be of long duration.

scholarly journals Redefining success: the political ecology of genetically modified and organic cotton as solutions to agrarian crisis

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Flachs
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Organic Agriculture ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
Organic Cotton ◽  
Agrarian Crisis

The transnational spread of law and technology in Indian agricultural development has passed through three distinct phases since the mid-19th century. In each case, a narrative of agrarian crisis allowed for new state and corporate interventions, conceived by American and British agribusiness, within the existing logics of Indian smallholder agriculture. These begun with colonial British industrial cotton projects in the 1840s, continuing with Green Revolution agriculture, and on contemporary GM and organic cotton farms. In each case, farmers developed strategies through a frictive, contentious adoption of new technologies and built new avenues to success that worked for some farmers and failed for others. In this article I draw on ethnographic fieldwork and household surveys conducted in nine villages from 2012-2014 in Telangana, India. As with previous development initiatives, the US-born legal structures that defined high-tech GM and low-tech organic agriculture were adopted in India without major changes. I argue, however that their actual implementation by farmers has required a significant shift in the ways that people manage the agricultural economy.Keywords: Genetically Modified crops, organic agriculture, development, South India This paper was winner of the Eric Wolf Prize, Political Ecology Society, 2015.

Path Dependence and the Modernisation of Agriculture: A Case Study of Aragon, 1955–85

Rural History ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERNESTO CLAR ◽  
VICENTE PINILLA
Keyword(s):  
High Speed ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
Agricultural Transformation ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Industrial Regions ◽  
Macro Variables

AbstractThis paper explains how technological developments and changes in production encouraged and drove the processes of agricultural modernisation that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, taking the region of Aragon in north eastern Spain as a case study. The main agricultural macro-variables reveal a surge in output, coincident with a far-reaching restructuring of production, in which livestock and animal feeds played a key role. The relative success of this high speed agricultural transformation was largely due to technological progress and the development of Aragon's trade links before 1936. Meanwhile, the earlier development of irrigation schemes, the capitalisation of farms and experimentation with different seed varieties allowed the region to adapt quickly to the new Green Revolution technologies that came to the fore after 1950. At the same time, established trade links allowed a swift transition to livestock and related produce destined for fast developing agro-industrial regions, like Catalonia and Valencia. As in other countries, technological and trade path dependency also explain the polarisation of agricultural development within Aragon itself, and in particular the success of the provinces of Zaragoza and Huesca in contrast to failure and depopulation in Teruel. The experience of Aragon may thus be useful to understand the dynamics of other less developed regions currently in the throes of transformation.

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