Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold WarDuring 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. |
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.
Contents
| 3 | |
2 Wheat People and Plant Breeding | 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 |
Other editions - View all
Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War John H. Perkins Limited preview - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
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 famine farm farmers fertilizer food grains food production 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-Malthusian nitrogen Norin percent Plant Breeding Institute Point Four political economy population problems Record Group 59 reform Rockefeller Foundation Rowland Biffen rural scientific scientists seeds semidwarf Sonora species Stakman Swaminathan technical theory tion United Kingdom University Press USNA variation Vogel wheat breeding wheat production World York
Bibliographic information
| Title | Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War |
| Author | John H. Perkins |
| Edition | reprint |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, 1997 |
| ISBN | 0195355032, 9780195355031 |
| Length | 352 pages |
| Subjects | › › Business & Economics / Industries / Agribusiness Technology & Engineering / Agriculture / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |