Rethinking the Green Revolution

The Green Revolution radically transformed agriculture throughout the world from the 1940s to the 1970s and remains a topic of dispute in agricultural policy. New plant varieties, cultivation techniques, and technologies dramatically increased crop yields and reduced global hunger. In response to current global food crises, many organizations today seek to replicate the Green Revolution’s rapid adoption of agricultural technologies. But what if policymakers have drawn incorrect lessons from the Green Revolution? Its enduring narrative has overemphasized technological successes and downplayed economic, social, and environmental risks including impacts on small-scale farmers, the homogenization and industrialization of farming, and the loss of food diversity.

On March 21 at 1PM ET, join journalist Dan Charles, professor Prakash Kumar (Penn State), and author Marci Baranski for a panel discussion of Baranski’s book, The Globalization of Wheat: A Critical History of the Green Revolution and the legacy of the Green Revolution. Panelists will discuss both successes and shortcomings of the Green Revolution’s impact on wheat production as a rare convergence of biological and political forces. This model, however, may not be as widely applicable as many proponents have claimed. Rethinking the fundamental assumptions and policy learnings from the Green Revolution is necessary to create more inclusive and sustainable solutions for modern agricultural development efforts.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase.