Green revolution?: technology and change in rice-growing areas of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka

Those who have been concerned with the social and economic develop ment of South Asia have good reason to regret that the term 'Green Revolution' was ever thought of. It has given rise on the one hand to hopes of economic gain that cannot be realised, and on the other, to allegations of social loss beyond what can be supported by the evidence. Yet if this term had not been coined, some other would have been, for we have witnessed a technological change in the rural scene that has come about very rapidly and has had far-reaching consequences. And to give it a name is much casier, and a much more human response, than to undertake the laborious

and exacting task of learning to understand it. The volume of literature generated by the Green Revolution is very large. From the accounts of the plant-breeding triumphs embodied in the new high-yielding cereal varieties to the very critical analyses of the social consequences of the new technology, it is dominated by the grand-scale approach. It is not just that thinking about the Green Revolution has been predominantly in terms of new seeds bred by international teams, but rather that it has been accepted as the achievement of a massive international effort, financed and organised to bring the whole weight of internati Wester a research to poor and populouscar on a continental scale upon the problems of the countries.

The rising food prices of the 1960s favoured the exploitation of cheap energy supplies and cheap fertilisers by the use of fertility-responsive new varieties, and made possible a very widespread technological change within a decade. The circumstances of the mid-1970s are very different. Not only is energy expensive and fertiliser scarce; it is now apparent that internationally bred cereal varieties do not at into district, or even regional, farming patterns. This first contrast appeared between the swee sweeping s evident when the India's irrigated alluvial lands, and the much new wheat varieties on g success of a new rice varieties on the great diversity of India's rice la access of the more limited The mixture of spectacular success, modest improvement and critical dillusion has led to endless, but inconclusive, debate- -inconclusive because of the lack of real information on what actually goes on in the farmers' fields. On the initiative of the Centre of South Asian Studies in Cambridge, and with the co-operation of the Universities of Madras and Sri Lanka and of the Agrarian Research and Training Institute, Colombo, an inter-disciplinary study group was assembled to provide some of this information. The members of the team undertook comparative field studies of the impact of the Green Revolution technology on rice-farming in two areas, one in Tamil Nadu and one in Sri Lanka.

This volume is the report of the group, and it carries the debate a stage further, in that it puts on record a great range of material and shows how inadequate a simple international concept of agricultural advance can be. Diversity is a basic characteristic of all agricultural enterprise, and we have ignored it to our cost. In the formulation of research objectives, in plant breeding, in soil fertility, in water conservation and management, in the planning and execution of economic policy, and in the amelioration and reform of social practice and custom, the fundamental importance of local circumstances is brought out."

This is not a reassuring book. It destroys the illusion that agricultural problems can be solved by massive centrally planned research, and directs the investigator to the village and the field as the places where understanding must be gained if progress is to be made. But surely we knew that we were deluding ourselves, and that in the long run we must go back to the field. This project brings a sense of realism into the debate that all concerned scholars will welcome.