Rice and wheat strains

The invention:



Artificially created high-yielding wheat and rice

varieties that are helping food producers in developing countries

keep pace with population growth

The people behind the invention:



Orville A. Vogel (1907-1991), an agronomist who developed

high-yielding semidwarf winter wheats and equipment for

wheat research

Norman E. Borlaug (1914- ), a distinguished agricultural

scientist

Robert F. Chandler, Jr. (1907-1999), an international agricultural

consultant and director of the International Rice Research

Institute, 1959-1972

William S. Gaud (1907-1977), a lawyer and the administrator of

the U.S. Agency for International Development, 1966-1969



The Problem of Hunger



In the 1960’s, agricultural scientists created new, high-yielding

strains of rice and wheat designed to fight hunger in developing

countries. Although the introduction of these new grains raised levels

of food production in poor countries, population growth and

other factors limited the success of the so-called “Green Revolution.”

Before World War II, many countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin

America exported grain toWestern Europe. After the war, however,

these countries began importing food, especially from the United

States. By 1960, they were importing about nineteen million tons of

grain a year; that level nearly doubled to thirty-six million tons in

1966. Rapidly growing populations forced the largest developing

countries—China, India, and Brazil in particular—to import huge

amounts of grain. Famine was averted on the Indian subcontinent

in 1966 and 1967 only by the United States shipping wheat to the region.

The United States then changed its food policy. Instead of contributing

food aid directly to hungry countries, the U.S. began working to help such countries feed themselves.

The new rice and wheat strains were introduced just as countries

in Africa and Asia were gaining their independence from the European

nations that had colonized them. The ColdWar was still going

strong, and Washington and other Western capitals feared that the

Soviet Union was gaining influence in the emerging countries. To

help counter this threat, the U.S. Agency for International Development

(USAID) was active in the ThirdWorld in the 1960’s, directing

or contributing to dozens of agricultural projects, including building

rural infrastructure (farm-to-market roads, irrigation projects,

and rural electric systems), introducing modern agricultural techniques,

and importing fertilizer or constructing fertilizer factories in

other countries. By raising the standard of living of impoverished

people in developing countries through applying technology to agriculture,

policymakers hoped to eliminate the socioeconomic conditions

that would support communism.





The Green Revolution



It was against this background thatWilliam S. Gaud, administrator

of USAID from 1966 to 1969, first talked about a “green revolution”

in a 1968 speech before the Society for International Development

in Washington, D.C. The term “green revolution” has

been used to refer to both the scientific development of highyielding

food crops and the broader socioeconomic changes in a

country’s agricultural sector stemming from farmers’ adoption of

these crops.

In 1947, S. C. Salmon, a United States Department of Agriculture

(USDA) scientist, brought a wheat-dwarfing gene to the United

States. Developed in Japan, the gene produced wheat on a short

stalk that was strong enough to bear a heavy head of grain. Orville

Vogel, another USDA scientist, then introduced the gene into local

wheat strains, creating a successful dwarf variety known as Gaines

wheat. Under irrigation, Gaines wheat produced record yields. After

hearing about Vogel’s work, Norman Borlaug, who headed

the Rockefeller Foundation’s wheat-breeding program in Mexico,

adapted Gaines wheat, later called “miracle wheat,” to a variety of

growing conditions in Mexico.

Success with the development of high-yielding wheat varieties

persuaded the Rockefeller and Ford foundations to pursue similar

ends in rice culture. The foundations funded the International Rice

Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos, Philippines, appointing as director

Robert F. Chandler, Jr., an international agricultural consultant.

Under his leadership, IRRI researchers cross-bred Peta, a tall variety

of rice from Indonesia, with Deo-geo-woo-gen, a dwarf rice from Taiwan,

to produce a new strain, IR-8. Released in 1966 and dubbed

“miracle rice,” IR-8 produced yields double those of other Asian rice

varieties and in a shorter time, 120 days in contrast to 150 to 180 days.

Statistics from India illustrate the expansion of the new grain varieties.

During the 1966-1967 growing season, Indian farmers planted

improved rice strains on 900,000 hectares, or 2.5 percent of the total

area planted in rice. By 1984-1985, the surface area planted in improved

rice varieties stood at 23.4 million hectares, or 56.9 percent of

the total. The rate of adoption was even faster for wheat. In 1966-

1967, improved varieties covered 500,000 hectares, comprising 4.2

percent of the total wheat crop. By the 1984-1985 growing season,

the surface area had expanded to 19.6 million hectares, or 82.9 percent

of the total wheat crop.

To produce such high yields, IR-8 and other genetically engineered

varieties of rice and wheat required the use of irrigation, fertilizers,

and pesticides. Irrigation further increased food production

by allowing year-round farming and the planting of multiple crops

on the same plot of land, either two crops of high-yielding grain varieties

or one grain crop and another food crop.

Expectations

The rationale behind the introduction of high-yielding grains in

developing countries was that it would start a cycle of improvement

in the lives of the rural poor. High-yielding grains would lead to

bigger harvests and better-nourished and healthier families. If better

nutrition enabled more children to survive, the need to have large

families to ensure care for elderly parents would ease. Ahigher survival

rate of children would lead couples to use family planning,

slowing overall population growth and allowing per capita food intake

to rise.

The greatest impact of the Green Revolution has been seen in

Asia, which experienced dramatic increases in rice production, and

on the Indian subcontinent, with increases in rice and wheat yields.

Latin America, especially Mexico, enjoyed increases in wheat harvests.

Subsaharan Africa initially was left out of the revolution, as

scientists paid scant attention to increasing the yields of such staple

food crops as yams, cassava, millet, and sorghum. By the 1980’s,

however, this situation was being remedied with new research directed

toward millet and sorghum.

Research is conducted by a network of international agricultural

research centers. Backed by both public and private funds, these

centers cooperate with international assistance agencies, private

foundations, universities, multinational corporations, and government

agencies to pursue and disseminate research into improved

crop varieties to farmers in the Third World. IRRI and the International

Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (IMMYT) in Mexico

City are two of these agencies.



Impact



Expectations went unrealized in the first few decades following

the green revolution. Despite the higher yields from millions of

tons of improved grain seeds imported into the developing world,

lower-yielding grains still accounted for much of the surface area

planted in grain. The reasons for this explain the limits and impact

of the Green Revolution.

The subsistence mentality dies hard. The main targets of Green

Revolution programs were small farmers, people whose crops provide

barely enough to feed their families and provide seed for the

next crop. If an experimental grain failed, they faced starvation.

Such farmers hedged their bets when faced with a new proposition,

for example, by intercropping, alternating rows of different grains

in the same field. In this way, even if one crop failed, another might

feed the family.

Poor farmers in developing countries also were likely to be illiterate

and not eager to try something they did not fully understand.

Also, by definition, poor farmers often did not have the means to

purchase the inputs—irrigation, fertilizer, and pesticides—required

to grow the improved varieties.

In many developing countries, therefore, rich farmers tended to be

the innovators. More likely than poor farmers to be literate, they also

had the money to exploit fully the improved grain varieties. They

also were more likely than subsistence-level farmers to be in touch

with the monetary economy, making purchases from the agricultural

supply industry and arranging sales through established marketing

channels, rather than producing primarily for personal or family use.

Once wealthy farmers adopted the new grains, it often became

more difficult for poor farmers to do so. Increased demand for limited

supplies, such as pesticides and fertilizers, raised costs, while

bigger-than-usual harvests depressed market prices.With high sales

volumes, owners of large farms could withstand the higher costs and

lower-per-unit profits, but smaller farmers often could not.

Often, the result of adopting improved grains was that small

farmers could no longer make ends meet solely by farming. Instead,

they were forced to hire themselves out as laborers on large farms.

Surges of laborers into a limited market depressed rural wages,

making it even more difficult for small farmers to eke out a living.

The result was that rich farmers got richer and poor farmers got

poorer. Often, small farmers who could no longer support their

families would leave rural areas and migrate to the cities, seeking

work and swelling the ranks of the urban poor.



Mixed Results



The effects of the Green Revolution were thus mixed. The dissemination

of improved grain varieties unquestionably increased

grain harvests in some of the poorest countries of the world. Seed

companies developed, produced, and sold commercial quantities of

improved grains, and fertilizer and pesticide manufacturers logged

sales to developing countries thanks to USAID-sponsored projects.

Along with disrupting the rural social structure and encouraging

rural flight to the cities, the Green Revolution has had other negative

effects. For example, the millions of tube wells sunk in India to

irrigate crops reduced groundwater levels in some regions faster

than they could be recharged. In other areas, excessive use of pesticides

created health hazards, and fertilizer use led to streams and

ponds being clogged by weeds. The scientific community became

concerned that the use of improved varieties of grain, many of

which were developed from the same mother variety, reduced the

genetic diversity of the world’s food crops, making them especially

vulnerable to attack by disease or pests.

Perhaps the most significant impact of the Green Revolution is

the change it wrought in the income and class structure of rural areas;

often, malnutrition was not eliminated in either the countryside

or the cities. Almost without exception, the relative position of peasants

deteriorated. Many analysts admit that the Green Revolution

did not end world hunger, but they argue that it did buy time. The

poorest of the poor would be even worse off without it.