Date: 2025-01-15 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021697
AGRICULTURE
FOOD PRODUCTION
PDF: The Asian Green Revolution was one of the greatest development successes ever.
FOOD PRODUCTION
PDF: The Asian Green Revolution was one of the greatest development successes ever.
Original article: https://ebrary.ifpri.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/29462/filename/29463.pdf
also here: The-Asian-Green-Revolution-29463-CGIAR-IFPRI-21697
Burgess COMMENTARY
The Asian Green Revolution has been one of the greatest development successes ever. After WWII there was great concern that world agriculture did not have the capacity to feed the world's population especially in the high population density regions of Asia.
In Europe the great post-war success was associated with the rebuilding of its industrial base, enormously helped by the US Marshall Plan.
In Asia, the great post-war success was the Green Revolution bankrolled early on by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in the 1960s — and subsequently by publicly funded institutions and governments. The “Green revolution” promoted the use of high yielding seed varieties, irrigation, mechanization, fertilizers and pesticides.
In 1978 I did a consulting assignment with the World Bank in India and saw some of the agricultural progress in India up close. It was impressive and demonstrated to me that amazing progress is possible when technology, people, land, and investment and brought together in the right way.
Unfortunately during the past 40 years there has been a massive focus on financial performance by the world's investment community at the expense of comprehensice development that brings benefit to society in general and does little damage to the environment ... not to mention an escessive diversion of financial investment into military readiness and associated technologies.
Peter Burgess