theme 5

• After four decades of planned economic development, large numbers of people in the Third World still lack the basic means of subsistence
• Principal paradigms within the discourse on economic development

  • Neoclassical economic theories of underdevelopment
  • Neo-Marxist theories of uneven development
  • Environmentalist conception of sustainable development
• Green Revolution


  • Led to reduced genetic diversity
  • Increased vulnerability to pests
  • Soil erosion
  • Water shortages
  • Reduced soil fertility
  • Micronutrient deficiencies
  • Soil contamination
  • Reduced availability of nutritious food crops for the local population
  • Displacement of vast numbers of small farmers from their land
  • Rural impoverishment
  • Increased tensions and conflicts
• These three paradigms share the central belief that poverty arises from lack of development or underdevelopment, a condition that can be eradicated with more development
• High-yielding varieties (HYVs)


  Highly responsive to certain key inputs such as fertilizers and irrigation water
• The contrary notion that development creates scarcity calls for a basic rethinking of the "poverty problem"
• The term "high-yielding varieties" is a misnomer, because it implies that the new seeds are high yielding of themselves
• Much of the increased yield obtained by planting the new HYV varieties consists of water
• Nexus of production relations


  An analytical scheme that includes technical, social, ecological, cultural, and academic relations, which are dialectical and mutually constituted
• Increasing the nitrogen uptake of plants through using artificial fertilizers upsets their carbon/nitrogen balance, causing metabolic problems to which the plant reacts primarily by taking up extra water
• Nexus of production relations

  • Production is determined within a web of relations, not just technology, goods, and markets
  • The relations should not be conceived as discrete, analytical categories
  • The relations are dialectical, acting and reacting upon each other constantly
  • In a historical sense, the relations are also mutually constituted
• Green revolution


  Sharp rise in grain yields brought on by the dissemination of new water-seed-fertiliser technologies introduced in the 1950s and 1960s
• India is a centre of genetic diversity of rice, and Indian peasants and tribals have selected and improved many indigenous high yielding varieties
• Overdetermination


  Every process is determined simultaneously by every other process in society, opposed to essentialism
• Comparative studies of 22 rice growing systems have shown that indigenous systems are more efficient when inputs of labour and energy are taken into account
• Term 'green revolution' coined by William Gaud, head of USAID


  1968
• Diversity in traditional agriculture

  • Contributed to ecological stability and ecosystem productivity
  • The lower the diversity, the higher the vulnerability to pests and disease
• Productivity improvements were recorded in rich and poor countries alike, but the economic and political impact was greatest in the developing world
• Technical relations of production


  Attributes of production forces determined in a larger context, beyond just raw materials, resources, labor, and technology
• The Green Revolution package has reduced genetic diversity by replacing mixtures and rotations of crops with monocultures of wheat and rice, and by using a very narrow genetic base of wheat and rice varieties
• Green revolution


  • Increase in wheat yields by 3.5 times and rice yields doubled in the developing world from 1961 to 2001
  • Total cereal production tripled in Asia and Latin America, and expanded 2.5-fold in Africa over the same period
  • Higher production levels worked to stabilise and in some cases lower domestic food prices and increase farm incomes
  • Helped countries conserve scarce foreign exchange by moving from deficit to surplus in the balance of trade in cereals
• In the absence of additional inputs of fertilizers and water, the new seeds perform worse than indigenous varieties
• Social relations of production


  Ownership of the means of production, the manner in which they are utilized, and the rules for social distribution of the final product
• Modern varieties (MVs)


  Semi-dwarf in stature, could absorb more nutrients from the soil without lodging or falling over
• Crops have traditionally been bred to produce not just food for humans, but fodder for animals and organic fertilizer for soils, but this was sacrificed in the breeding strategy for the Green Revolution
• Development of modern wheat varieties

  • Pioneering work by Norman Borlaug of the Office of Special Studies, a cooperative venture between the Mexican ministry of agriculture and the Rockefeller Foundation
  • Served as a model for international agricultural research centres like CIMMYT and IRRI
• Ecological relations of production


  Interactions between production and the biophysical environment, including matter, energy, waste, chemicals, and heat
• Because of their narrow genetic base, HYVs are inherently vulnerable to major pests and diseases
• Success of rice and wheat MVs was founded on prior and equally significant innovations in ammonia production, which succeeded in dramatically reducing the cost of synthesising fixed nitrogen
• Cultural relations of production

  Mutual interactions between economy and culture, including shared meaning, beliefs, values, and symbols
• The introduction of HYVs has brought about a marked change in the status of insect pests, with crop losses of 30-100%
• Water control


  The 'leading input in Asian agriculture', as improved irrigation and drainage worked to stabilise yields, increase cropping intensities and create the agro-ecological conditions required for the adoption of improved fertiliser-sensitive varieties
• In the Punjab, the rice variety PR 106, which currently accounts for 80% of the area under rice cultivation, was considered resistant to whitebacked planthopper and stem rot when it was introduced in 1976, but has since become susceptible to both
• Intensification of production would not have been possible in the newly independent countries of Asia without prior, large-scale investment in the expansion and improvement of irrigation systems
• Academic relations of production

  Use of science and research in development of production forces, and construction of models and language used in social theories of production
• The "improvement" of seeds is essentially a political process, shifting control over biological diversity from peasants to transnational corporations and changing a self-reproducing resource into a mere "input"
• In 2000, irrigated cropland as a share of arable was less than 5% in Sub-Saharan Africa compared to 40% in Asia
• Modern plant breeding is primarily an attempt to remove the biological obstacle of self-reproducing seed to corporate control of the market in seeds
• Academic descriptions of production are not necessarily impartial and neutral, because values, assumptions, objectives, models, and language of representation are all thoroughly influenced by the entire nexus of production relations
• Much of the required investment in irrigation systems, and ancillary investments in transportation, storage and fertiliser production, was undertaken by the public sector