The green revolution in India about 50 years ago transformed India's image then as begging bowl to bread basket. This transformation during the 1960s took just about 4 years. The yield increases achieved in wheat and then in rice which occurred in just about half decade is far in excess of the yield increases during the preceding 4000 years. This remarkable feat was achieved with the leadership of the author using the dwarf wheat types which had been produced by Norman Borlaug in Mexico. The research and development of green revolution of wheat and rice at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi was led by the author along with his team of students and co-workers. He has published over 100 papers on green revolution and the ever-green revolution which is a refinement of the former. This book is a compilation of just about 40 of his numerous research papers, monographs and books published by him on this subject. The papers in this book bring out the scientific basis of the modification of the plant type so as to be responsive to exogenous addition of chemical fertilizers and irrigation. The ideal plant type enables capture of adequate sunlight and using the chemical fertilizers added to the soil, produce substantial photosynthetic starch. And because the plants have short and thick culm, they are able to withstand enormous amounts of grains in their ears. This indeed was the basis of breaking the yield barriers associated with native varieties. The book also brings out that green revolution had established the food security at the national level but not at the individual household levels of millions of resource-poor rural small and marginal farming, fishing and landless families. Further green revolution was commodity-centric and the manner of its practice led to environmental degradation and social inequities. This author realized as early as 1972 that system of agriculture in India should be designed to fight both the famines of food and rural livelihoods. In pursuit of it, this author further designed an evergreen revolution with systems approach. What this means is providing concurrent attention to ecological foundations of agriculture and the livelihoods of the rural people. The book also brings out that green revolution was a team effort involving scientists, policy makers, administrators, farmers and students. This book is an outstanding example of green revolution providing a breathing space by putting the cereal grain production rate ahead of the population growth rate and then when food security has been adequately established, the system is changed to achieve productivity in perpetuity without causing environmental and social harm.

This ambitious and engaging new account of independent India's struggle to overcome famine and malnutrition in the twentieth century traces Indian nation-building through the voices of politicians, planners, and citizens. Siegel explains the historical origins of contemporary India's hunger and malnutrition epidemic, showing how food and sustenance moved to the center of nationalist thought in the final years of colonial rule. Independent India's politicians made promises of sustenance and then qualified them by asking citizens to share the burden of feeding a new and hungry state. Foregrounding debates over land, markets, and new technologies, Hungry Nation interrogates how citizens and politicians contested the meanings of nation-building and citizenship through food, and how these contestations receded in the wake of the Green Revolution. Drawing upon meticulous archival research, this is the story of how Indians challenged meanings of welfare and citizenship across class, caste, region, and gender in a new nation-state.

Seeds of Sustainability is a groundbreaking analysis of agricultural development and transitions toward more sustainable management in one region. An invaluable resource for researchers, policymakers, and students alike, it examines new approaches to make agricultural landscapes healthier for both the environment and people. The Yaqui Valley is the birthplace of the Green Revolution and one of the most intensive agricultural regions of the world, using irrigation, fertilizers, and other technologies to produce some of the highest yields of wheat anywhere. It also faces resource limitations, threats to human health, and rapidly changing economic conditions. In short, the Yaqui Valley represents the challenge of modern agriculture: how to maintain livelihoods and increase food production while protecting the environment. Renowned scientist Pamela Matson and colleagues from leading institutions in the U.S. and Mexico spent fifteen years in the Yaqui Valley in Sonora, Mexico addressing this challenge. Seeds of Sustainability represents the culmination of their research, providing unparalleled information about the causes and consequences of current agricultural methods. Even more importantly, it shows how knowledge can translate into better practices, not just in the Yaqui Valley, but throughout the world.

The Green Revolution – the apparently miraculous increase in cereal crop yields achieved in the 1960s – came under severe criticism in the 1970s because of its demands for optimal irrigation, intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides; its damaging impact on social structures; and its monoculture approach. The early 1980s saw a concerted approach to many of these criticisms under the auspices of Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). This book, first published in 1987, analyses the recent achievements of the CGIAR and examines the Green Revolution concept in South America, Asia and Africa, from an ‘ecodevelopment’ standpoint, with particular regard to the plight of the rural poor. The work is characterised by a concern for the ecological and social dimensions of agricultural development,which puts the emphasis on culturally compatible, labour absorbing and environmentally sustainable food production which will serve the long term needs of developing countries.

The Man Who Fed the World provides a loving and respectful portrait of one of America's greatest heroes. Nobel Peace Prize recipient for averting hunger and famine, Dr. Norman Borlang is credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives from starvation-more than any other person in history? Loved by millions around the world, Dr. Borlang is recognized as one of the most influential men of the twentieth century.

A synthesis of the agricultural history of the Green Revolution The Green Revolution was devised to increase agricultural production worldwide, particularly in the developing world. Agriculturalists employed anhydrous ammonia and other fertilizing agents, mechanical tilling, hybridized seeds, pesticides, herbicides, and a multitude of other techniques to increase yields and feed a mushrooming human population that would otherwise suffer starvation as the world’s food supply dwindled. In The Green Revolution in the Global South: Science, Politics, and Unintended Consequences, R. Douglas Hurt demonstrates that the Green Revolution did not turn out as neatly as scientists predicted. When its methods and products were imported to places like Indonesia and Nigeria, or even replicated indigenously, the result was a tumultuous impact on a society’s functioning. A range of factors—including cultural practices, ethnic and religious barriers, cost and availability of new technologies, climate, rainfall and aridity, soil quality, the scale of landholdings, political policies and opportunism, the rise of industrial farms, civil unrest, indigenous diseases, and corruption—entered into the Green Revolution calculus, producing a series of unintended consequences that varied from place to place. As the Green Revolution played out over time, these consequences rippled throughout societies, affecting environments, economies, political structures, and countless human lives. Analyzing change over time, almost decade by decade, Hurt shows that the Green Revolution was driven by the state as well as science. Rather than acknowledge the vast problems with the Green Revolution or explore other models, Hurt argues, scientists and political leaders doubled down and repeated the same missteps in the name of humanity and food security. In tracing the permutations of modern science’s impact on international agricultural systems, Hurt documents how, beyond increasing yields, the Green Revolution affected social orders, politics, and lifestyles in every place its methods were applied—usually far more than once.