In The Globalization of Wheat, Marci R. Baranski explores Norman Borlaug’s complicated legacy as godfather of the Green Revolution. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his role in fighting global hunger, Borlaug, an American agricultural scientist and plant breeder who worked for the Rockefeller Foundation, left a legacy that divides opinions even today. His high-yielding dwarf wheat varieties, known as miracle seeds, effectively doubled and tripled crop yields across the globe, from Kenya to India and Argentina to Mexico due to their wide adaptation. But these modern seeds also required expensive chemical fertilizers and irrigation, both of which were only available to wealthier farmers. Baranski argues that Borlaug’s new technologies ultimately privileged wealthier farmers, despite assurances to politicians that these new crops would thrive in diverse geographies and benefit all farmers. As large-scale monocultures replaced traditional farming practices, these changes were codified into the Indian wheat research system, thus limiting attention to traditional practices and marginal environments. In the shadow of this legacy, and in the face of accelerating climate change, Baranski brings new light to Borlaug’s role in a controversial concept in agricultural science.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Marci Baranski;
(2019)
Globalizing Wheat: Success and Failure of the Green Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB650890415/)
Thesis
Marci Baranski;
(2015)
The Wide Adaptation of Green Revolution Wheat
(/isis/citation/CBB084124000/)
Book
Sigrid Schmalzer;
(2016)
Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China
(/isis/citation/CBB163907239/)
Book
Anderson, J. L.;
(2009)
Industrializing the Corn Belt: Agriculture, Technology, and Environment, 1945--1972
(/isis/citation/CBB000954248/)
Thesis
Timothy Wayne Lorek;
(2019)
Developing Paradise: Agricultural Science in the Conflicted Landscapes of Colombia's Cauca Valley, 1927-1967
(/isis/citation/CBB110228329/)
Article
Gabriela Soto Laveaga;
(2022)
Rogue Seeds in Disturbed Fields
(/isis/citation/CBB467097261/)
Book
Emily Pawley;
(2020)
The Nature of the Future: Agriculture, Science, and Capitalism in the Antebellum North
(/isis/citation/CBB959441882/)
Article
Robert Suits;
(2023)
Hoboes, Wheat, and Climate Precarity, 1870–1922
(/isis/citation/CBB795320228/)
Article
Craig Morris;
David Bolingbroke;
(2022)
From Bread to Cake: A Global History of Pacific Northwest Wheat during the Cold War
(/isis/citation/CBB087656921/)
Thesis
William San Martin;
(2017)
Nitrogen Revolutions: Agricultural Expertise, Technology, and Policy in Cold War Chile
(/isis/citation/CBB638294249/)
Article
Helen Anne Curry;
(2023)
Diversifying Description: Sweet Potato Science and International Agricultural Research after the Green Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB369452091/)
Article
Santos, Gonçalo;
(2011)
Rethinking the Green Revolution in South China: Technological Materialities and Human-Environment Relations
(/isis/citation/CBB001231671/)
Article
Kaori Iida;
(2021)
Postwar Reconstruction of Japanese Genetics: Kihara Hitoshi and the Rockefeller Foundation Rice Project in Cold War Asia
(/isis/citation/CBB800955448/)
Book
Courtney Fullilove;
(2017)
The Profit of the Earth: The Global Seeds of American Agriculture
(/isis/citation/CBB998599024/)
Book
Charles C. Mann;
(2018)
The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World
(/isis/citation/CBB498952584/)
Article
Leo Chu;
(2023)
With and against the Grain: The Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center and Modest Narratives of Green Revolution in Taiwan, 1963–2002
(/isis/citation/CBB265339233/)
Book
Joshua Eisenman;
(2018)
Red China's Green Revolution: Technological Innovation, Institutional Change, and Economic Development Under the Commune
(/isis/citation/CBB393548124/)
Book
Thomas D. Rogers;
(2022)
Agriculture's Energy: The Trouble with Ethanol in Brazil's Green Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB172290706/)
Article
Rebecca Tally;
(2023)
“How to Not Win Friends”: Mundane Matters, Constant Critique, and the Rockefeller Foundation's Defense of Wheat Production in Colombia, 1950–1965
(/isis/citation/CBB839875841/)
Article
Ito Atsushi;
(2021)
Japanese Market Development Programs under PL 480 in the late 1950s: Focus on Wheat and Rice
(/isis/citation/CBB185787791/)
Be the first to comment!