Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold WarOxford University Press, 1997 M12 14 - 352 páginas During the last 100 years, the worldwide yields of cereal grains, such as wheat and rice, have increased dramatically. Since the 1950s, developments in plant breeding science have been heralded as a "Green Revolution" in modern agriculture. But what factors have enabled and promoted these technical changes? And what are the implications for the future of agriculture? This new book uses a framework of political ecology and environmental history to explore the "Green Revolution's" emergence during the 20th century in the United States, Mexico, India, and Britain. It argues that the national security planning efforts of each nation were the most important forces promoting the development and spread of the "Green Revolution"; when viewed in the larger scheme, this period can be seen as the latest chapter in the long history of wheat use among humans, which dates back to the neolithic revolution. Efforts to reform agriculture and mitigate some of the harsh environmental and social consequences of the "Green Revolution" have generally been insensitive to the deeply embedded nature of high yielding agriculture in human ecology and political affairs. This important insight challenges those involved in agriculture reform to make productivity both sustainable and adequate for a growing human population. |
Contenido
| 3 | |
| 19 | |
Coalescence of a Modern Science 19001959 | 42 |
4 Plant Breeding in Its Institutional and Political Economic Setting 19001940 | 75 |
The New International Politics of Plant Breeding 19411945 | 102 |
A New Strategic Theory for Plant Breeding 19451956 | 118 |
7 Wheat Breeding and the Exercise of American Power 19401970 | 140 |
8 Wheat Breeding and the Consolidation of Indian Autonomy 19401970 | 157 |
9 Wheat Breeding and the Reconstruction of Postimperial Britain 19351954 | 187 |
10 Science and the Green Revolution 19451975 | 210 |
Epilogue | 256 |
Notes | 269 |
Index | 325 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War John H. Perkins Vista previa limitada - 1997 |
Términos y frases comunes
agricul agricultural education Agricultural Research Council agricultural science American areas Bailey became Biffen Borlaug breeders Britain British agriculture Cambridge century cereal countries created crops Delhi domestic ecology economic efforts England Engledow environmental famine farm farmers fertilizer food grains food supplies foreign exchange genetic green revolution Harrar harvest hectare high-yielding higher yields human IARI Ibid important increase India Indian Agricultural industrial irrigation labor land Liberty Hyde Bailey Loveday Committee Lupton M. S. Swaminathan maize major Mendel's Mendelian ment Mexican Mexican wheats Mexico million tons Ministry of Agriculture needed Nehru neo-Malthusianism nitrogen Norin percent Plant Breeding Institute Point Four political economy population problems Record Group 59 reform Rockefeller Foundation Rowland Biffen rural scientific scientists seed semidwarf Sonora species Stakman Swaminathan technical theory tion United Kingdom University Press USNA variation Vogel wheat breeding Wheat Improvement wheat production World York
Pasajes populares
Página 144 - Fourth, we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of under-developed areas.
Página 144 - More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas.
Página 167 - The future of land ownership and cultivation constitutes perhaps the most fundamental issue in national development. To a large extent the pattern of economic and social organisation will depend upon the manner in which the land problem is resolved.
Página 144 - The old imperialism — exploitation for foreign profit — has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair-dealing.
Página 83 - I am told that no Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever been called on to impose such heavy taxes in a time of peace. This, Mr Emmott, is a war budget. It is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time when poverty and wretchedness and human degradation which always follow in its camp will be as remote to the people of this country...
Página 144 - I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations for a better life. And in cooperation with other nations, we should foster capital investment in areas needing development.
Página 144 - The United States is pre-eminent among nations in the development of industrial and scientific techniques. The material resources which we can afford to use for the assistance of other peoples are limited. But our imponderable resources in technical knowledge are constantly growing and are inexhaustible.
Página 53 - On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favorable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest.
Página 144 - In the pursuit of these aims, the United States and other like-minded nations find themselves directly opposed by a regime with contrary aims and a totally different concept of life. That regime adheres to a false philosophy which purports to offer freedom, security, and greater opportunity to mankind. Misled by this philosophy, many peoples have sacrificed their liberties only to learn to their sorrow that deceit and mockery, poverty and tyranny, are their reward. That false philosophy is Communism.
Página 181 - Plan ending 1966. Although there is considerable emphasis on family planning in India, no appreciable slowing down of population growth may be expected during the Third Plan period.