HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 10

Development (OECD) introduced the concept of Official Development Assistance
(ODA), and in 1970, the General Assembly of the United Nations proposed donor
countries to allocate 0.7% of their Gross National Product (GNP) to ODA.
Many of the developing countries had just achieved independence from their
respective colonizers. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) in collaboration with many (inter)national agencies developed the concept of
a Green Revolution to increase the yields of cereals, comparable to the develop-
ments in cereal production in the USA and European countries. The Green
Revolution originated from breeding studies on wheat, begun in Mexico in the
1940s by the Rockefeller Foundation, and was institutionalized with the establish-
ment of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in
1966 by the Rockefeller Foundation and the government of Mexico. CIMMYT
included maize in its work programme. The agricultural practices promoted were
based on the science founded by Von Liebig (1855) and his contemporaries. One
stated purpose was to increase food production in the face of recurrent famines and
increasing food scarcity as a result of increasing populations. Yet, an important
intention was the creation of a growing market for farm inputs.
The strategy of the Green Revolution was to concentrate inputs and services on a
few major crops, such as wheat, rice, and corn on the best arable lands and for the
better-off farmers. Some critics, chiefly concerned with the social implications,
denounced these provisions. They argued that many farmers were excluded from
what was perceived as progress.
In South-east Asia, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) was
established in Los Baños in the Philippines in 1960, with major financial support
from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. In the 1970s, IRRI and other interna-
tional research centres for international and tropical agriculture became members of
the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), supported
by various international organizations including the World Bank and a large number
of developed countries. Today, the Group provides the umbrella for a range of
(currently: 15) international research institutes. While CIMMYT and IRRI were
commodity-oriented, most of the other CGIAR institutions concentrated on farming
systems, but have often similarly promoted input-intensive farming schemes.
IRRI's first major activity after its establishment was to breed rice lines that
would allow application of higher doses of fertilizer. The modern rice varieties can
cope well with high doses of nitrogen fertilizer, whereas the traditional varieties
tended to lodge. The new lines were also no longer photosensitive, so that they could
be planted year-round, thus, strongly promoting multiple cropping.
In 1966, IRRI began to distribute seeds of the so-called High-Yielding Variety
(HYV) IR8, which were mostly distributed as a package combined with chemical
fertilizers. Pesticides followed soon, since the new variety was more susceptible to
pests and diseases. The new practices became dominant within a few years in
several South-east Asian countries. At first, the results of the these HYVs were
convincing. Yields doubled or even tripled, similarly to those for wheat (Evenson
and Gollin 2003). Later, similar developments were achieved in maize. Evidently,
the increased yields were only possible with the help of substantial quantities of