Green Revolution
The Nation just published a piece by David Rieff on ‘the Green Revolution,’ a recurring topic on FS. Over at Insurgent American, I did a little monograph on the same subject in 2007. An excerpt:
The sheer scale of US chemical-industrial agriculture, along with subsidies for the transnationals who came to control that agriculture, gave the US agri-business interests unprecedented pricing power on the world market. The scale could not have worked, however, without the subsidies along with the political muscle the US exercised through the Bretton Woods institutions. The so-called Green Revolution was, in fact, conceived of as a weapon of domination.
It was inaugurated in 1943 through the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT – International Center to Improve Corn and Wheat), a joint venture between the Mexico and the Rockefeller Foundation (the Standard Oil family, that was manufacturing enormous quantities of fertilizer), and later the Ford Foundation (Ford was building tractors).
Now an excerpt from Rieff’s new piece:
The term “Green Revolution” is now so firmly entrenched in the history and practice of development that it is easy to forget its haphazard origin. It was coined more as what today we would call an exercise in branding than as part of a good faith effort to soberly describe the agricultural transformation that took place first in Mexico and then in Asia—above all in the Philippines and on the Indian subcontinent—between the late 1940s and the late ’60s. The term was the invention of the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), William Gaud, who first used it publicly in a speech…
Last Tuesday night, I attended a local presentation in a “Critical Issues” series at Siena Heights University, a school run by the Adrian Dominican Sisters. The topic was food, and there was a very informative presentation to a full house on the problems associated with a long-distance, industrial monocrop food system, as well as a strong critique of Big Ag.
One philosophy professor from nearby Adrian College played devil’s advocate, and asked the question, “Won’t people starve if we abandon industrial food production?”
Here is where some responses began to equivocate. “That’s true,” the response goes, “but we have to do what we can to make it more humane and sustainable.”
Someone did contest that, pointing out that intensive hand-tended polyculture can produce up to 20 times as much food per acre as industrial monocropping.
At any rate, the point here is that this untrue truism, that without industrial monocropping, the world would starve, is a propaganda talking point with a history. The piece by Rieff, and the old IA essay, both cover aspects of that history.
It takes more time than most people think they have to review this history, but it is vitally important, because this particular truism goes a very long way toward reproducing the current and completely insane food system by standing down any clear opposition to industrial ag… because, after all, people would starve.
This is simply not true, though what is equally clear is that to replace that food system will require a great deal of political will alongside a lot of exemplary alternatives and intensive public education on the issue. Part of that public education has to be describing that history, because that’s where the lie was developed.
Chris Schneider:
I woud argue that this is a matter of deeply private education.
21 February 2011, 3:23 amPersonally it took me until the age of 21 to find my way off of the grid and onto a sustainable homestead but any children I have will be raised in the same setting.
They asked us as high school sophomores where we saw ourselves in ten years. My only reply was ‘on a farm in Europe’. Here I am nine years later although in Hawaii instead. Tropical settings lend themselves to even tans and year round food production.
We operate a mostly closed loop agroforestry system. We keep chickens and goats for eggs and dairy and often for dog food. The goats are fed leguminous trees and other vegetation from here and are supplemented with coconut and fruit. The chickens are free range and are given coconut and excess yogurt and fruit to make their diet more well rounded. We eat a good deal of bulk food on account of the fact that this is marginal land but otherwise produce our own food. We do the majority of our cooking on rocket stoves with hard wood left over from cutting fodder.
The idea of entrusting this kind of hands-on education to a public authority is patently absurd. Throughout the history of agriculture people the world over and in particular in tropical climates have maintained homegardens as a matter of strict neccesity. Living a couple miles from a sprawling papaya monoculture I dont know that I can verify that we could produce twenty times the food. But I can saythat judging by the health of any GM papaya that is skipped in the chemical applications is that diversity is everything. Observation is the greatest teacher. I am deeply biased against public education and yes I know I should read your Vt piece before flapping about it but what members of the first world need to come to grips with is that they have a choice in every matter. We vote with our dollars. If we choose to sit in cafes and munch on chocolate from the Ivory Coast that is grown with forced child slave labor then the topic of our conversation should be the bloody stumps that were once hands of those who attempt to flee and not what Big Brother should be doing to ameliorate our impoverished condition. For surely anyone who has never known the pride and joy of a meal gleaned outside of the national economy is dirt poor.
Chris Schneider:
Sorry I wished to mention Trees For The Future a private organization that has been helping people throughout the tropics integrate sustainable agroforestry systems for many years. They offer a degree in Agroforestry that anyone who can read and write may obtain within a week or so. Its mostly ceremonial but is a decisive step in the right direction. Plus it makes you eligible to apply for grants and receive free seeds.
21 February 2011, 3:33 amStan:
Believe me when I say that what I mean by public education is not public schools. I mean educating the public. This site is different from many lefty, “progressive” sites in our deeply critical stance toward schooling, and we cite Illich and Gatto liberally on that account.
21 February 2011, 9:06 amChris Schneider:
Thank you for clarifying that Stan. I’ve only recently discovered your website and appreciate its flavor very much. But I believe that guilt fear and death are the greatest teachers.
21 February 2011, 4:48 pmOn that note Congress is considering cutting back diabetes related funding which Im very much in favor of. Except for juvenile diabetes of course although it is most likely a consequence of the dietary deterioration of the parents. It has been demonstrated in cats that each successive generation fed the Friskies diet has progressively worse teeth hunting and sxual instincts etc.
Its time for Americans to face the logial consequences of their actions. Imagine our blight upon the planet when viewed through this lens: we endorse and invest in the clearcutting and industrialization of prime agricultural land through the developing and undeveloped world so that we can have endless supplies of cheap sugar and other addictive commodities. Then the taxes from these filthy and inhumane industries contribute towards the exponential and endless costs of diabetes related care. Seemless parasitism.
If people choose to maintain such a standard of dying for themselves then they should be left as helpless as the indigenous peoples who are forced into urban slums by our rapacious development.
If only we were not equipped to take so much human and non human life down with us it would all fit neatly into an Aesopian fable.
Jenny:
Unfortunately, Shiva has been hanging around with Hindu nationalists lately:
http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/09/stories/2010120965220900.htm
And there’s this:
22 February 2011, 1:26 amhttp://www.swans.com/library/art15/barker17.html
Todd Millions:
Jenny-Thanx for your link.If you come across anything on india privatising the state granary system-could you post that as well?I’ve one report from the western producer,that says this was on the advice of ‘private grain commodity consultants’,but nothing since or on whom.India did however have a record harvest rott in the rain this year.
24 February 2011, 4:48 pmMark:
Just today someone sent me a link to site called 50 Mind Blowing Facts. Number 37 was The Man Who Saved Billions all about how Norman Borlaug is affectionately known as the “Father of the Green Revolution” and his wheat varieties are attributed with saving over one billion lives, particularly in Mexico, India, and Pakistan. It is definitely a powerful and deeply embedded story.
25 February 2011, 1:41 pm