Beyond the green revolution

After twenty years, the green revolution stands as a touch stone in international agricultural development. At a time when famine seemed imminent, new varieties of wheat and rice introduced to Asia and Latin America along with fertil izers, pesticides, and mechanized farm equipment dramatically in creased harvests. This agricultural strategy, which transformed the lives and prospects of hundreds of millions of people, is considered the most successful achievement in international development since the Marshall Plan and the reconstruction of Europe following World War II. India, whose food prospects once seemed bleak, today holds grain reserves that provide insurance against famine. Indonesia, once the world's largest rice importer, is now self-sufficient and exports rice.

But the agricultural progress that made the green revolution possible has not been distributed evenly. New seeds, fertilizers, and pesti cides boosted the crop yields of Asian and Latin American farmers who had access to irrigation systems and markets for their crops. The aggregate statistics hide a large group of Third World farmers who did not benefit from the new technologies: subsistence farmers rais ing food for their families on marginal, rainfed land. Because their agriculture remains unproductive and vulnerable to crop failure, drought, and natural catastrophe, these rural people remain among the poorest in their societies. Failing to address their needs has slowed economic progress in dozens of countries. The recurrent fam ines in Africa, and persistent pockets of starvation on that continent, demonstrate the unacceptable human costs of this neglect.