Green Revolution

One early center of the Green Revolution was Mexico. In 1943, the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation began a program to improve agricultural productivity. Under the leadership of agronomist Norman Borlaug, the program developed higher-yielding wheat varieties with improved disease resistance and performance across different growing conditions. Their adoption helped turn Mexico from a wheat importer into an exporter by the mid-1950s. The work was not a single invention: it grew from crop research, international cooperation and the later adaptation of breeding results by national agricultural programs. From the 1960s, similar efforts increasingly shaped cereal farming in parts of Asia.

The Green Revolution is often associated with high-yielding varieties, but improved seed was only one part of the change. Research institutions and governments promoted varieties alongside irrigation, fertilizers, crop protection and changes in cultivation. The approach depended on seed supply, infrastructure, access to inputs and policies that supported adoption. In rice, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), established in the Philippines in 1960, released IR8 in 1966. This semi-dwarf variety became a prominent example of modern rice breeding and was adopted in several Asian countries. The results depended on local conditions; a variety did not produce high yields without suitable water, nutrients and management.

The introduction and spread of improved cereal varieties contributed to large yield gains, lower staple-food prices and improved food availability in many developing countries. In a 2012 review, agricultural economist Prabhu Pingali noted that cereal production in the developing world had roughly tripled over the preceding five decades while cultivated land grew by about 30 percent. He emphasized that these gains also relied on investments in crop research, infrastructure, market development and public policy, rather than seed technology alone. The benefits did not reach every region or farmer equally: the review reported that in 1998 modern varieties covered about 82 percent of planted area across Asian countries, compared with 27 percent in Africa. Farmers in rain-fed or less well-served regions, and those unable to afford inputs, often gained less.

The production model also raised concerns. Intensive irrigation can place pressure on groundwater, while excessive or poorly managed fertilizer and pesticide use can contribute to pollution and soil degradation. A shift toward a narrower range of staple crops may also affect biodiversity and the availability of more varied foods. These outcomes were not identical everywhere: Pingali's review distinguishes the effects of crop technologies from the policies and incentives that encouraged particular patterns of input use and production. The Green Revolution therefore remains both a major change in agricultural productivity and a contested development model. Its history is often used to examine how food production, rural livelihoods, environmental limits and public investment interact.