Geographies and histories of the Green Revolution: from global flows to place-based experiences

Abstract

From the 1960s, agriculture across the developing world was transformed through new technologies and policies collectively designated as the ‘Green Revolution’. While major increases in food production can be traced to Green Revolution technologies, their environmental and social outcomes have remained matters of concern, including pollution and species and habitat loss, and persistent food and livelihoods insecurities. The Green Revolution also denoted a new ideology of agriculture that shifted agricultural innovations from farmers’ fields to scientific laboratories, and often argued for the universal dispersal of such innovations. The globalization of science and development was thus a central component of the Green Revolution and this chapter seeks to understand the Green Revolution through the lens of these global flows. Overall, this chapter considers how the unfolding of the Green Revolution has been accompanied by North–South technology flows, beginning in South America and Asia, and currently extending to new sites in Africa.