Shannon Green

This blog is based on a paper written for my Masters programme in 2023.

In December 2022, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack introduced the ‘Growing Agri-Business’ forum at the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit by outlining the shared priorities of the US and African countries in the development of the sector, namely “to create trade environments and systems that benefit our nations our peoples”.

In this introduction, Secretary Vilsack articulated a decades long policy of the US government – utilising agricultural development as an economic and political tool. In fact such a statement is emblamatic of the gap between the publicly espoused benefits of the Green Revolution and the available evidence which shows that the great powers have, and continue to, use the Green Revolution and its legacy to advance their geopolitical interests.

The “Long Green Revolution”

The term ‘Green Revolution’ most commonly refers to the period beginning in the Second World War running up to the late 1970s in which global agricultural production grew significantly, particularly in developing nations . This increase in production centred around wheat initially, then maize and rice, and was the result of US led agricultural research and development in Mexico (and later the Philippines).

To raise the maximum yield and be an attractive export, new seed technology had to be combined with synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, irrigation, and mechanical labour . These requirements favoured large landowners and those with the capital to invest in the full technological package – often to the detriment of smallholder and subsistence farmers .

While it is generally accepted that the Green Revolution ended in the late 1970s, there is continued debate as to what followed. Some refer to the ongoing use of Green Revolution technologies and packages by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation throughout the early new millennium, others see a clear continuation of the Green Revolution from mid-20^th Century Mexico and Asia to 21^st Century Africa. Yet others see the legacy of the Green Revolution in the ‘Gene Revolution’ starting in the 1980s with the development of gene altering biotechnology, and some even call for a Green Revolution 2.0 to tackle the perceived challenges of today’s agriculture.

Separating the Green Revolution into distinct timelines or phases stems from a focus on technological innovation and diffusion. But the Green Revolution is more than a package of technologies, it is an economic and socio-political tool. Defined by these drivers, it can be argued that the Green Revolution never ended. Taking inspiration from Hobsbawm’s Long Nineteenth Century, Raj Patel periodises the Green Revolution in terms of its long-term development, interventions, and transformations – dubbing it the “Long Green Revolution”, a process that continues to this day .

Red vs Green Revolutions: Combatting alternative political ideologies

The term ‘Green Revolution’ was coined within a geopolitical framework by USAID Administrator William Gaud. The Green Revolution, Gaud said, would be the counter to the Red Revolutions of communism . Here Gaud articulated the principle covert driver of the Green Revolution, the idea that US investment in agriculture (both direct and via philanthropic organisations) served as a significant geopolitical tool to combat communism and specifically the influence of the Soviet Union.

This existential threat was the main impetus behind US agricultural policy in India post-war. In the US’ view India’s independent government centred in urban areas was weak and could not adequately control the rural majority. The victory of Mao Zedong’s peasant fuelled arm and the vastness of Asia, including a population of almost one billion people in the early 1950s was identified by the CIA as a significant risk for developing into a full-scale communist continent, feeding into American concerns for their power and influence on the world-stage.

Green Revolution testing in Mexico had resulted in the production of excess rural labour as a consequence of mechanisation and chemical inputs, the rural unemployed then migrated to urban centres in search of industrial employment. These socio-economic changes which reduced excess rural labour, combined with evidence of increased crop yields gave the US government and associated actors (including the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations) a clear technocratic alternative to the collectivisation and industrialisation of communism which was subsequently applied in India.

Green Revolution 2.0 and ‘Climate-Smart Agriculture’: Expanding alternative market opportunities for domestic agribusiness

Utilising a neoliberal development discourse that argues open markets and free trade are core to progress and development, US foreign policy and US-led international institutions continued to push packages of technology and policy that borrowed heavily from the Green Revolution in order to open up agricultural markets in the Global South after the Cold War. As the priorities of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations shifted, a new force in neo-liberal philanthro-capitalism arose in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who continued the project of the Green Revolution into ‘Green Revolution 2.0’.

At the centre of the Green Revolution 2.0 is the relatively new technology of genetically modified (GM) crops. These crops, rather than providing a viable solution to agricultural challenges, are a conduit for the further commodification of biotechnology through patents and serve the capital interests of private philanthropic organisations and their benefactors .

The biotechnology of GM seeds and the required chemical inputs significantly benefits large multi-national corporations in the petrochemical and agri-business industries, many of which are investors in the Foundation Trust. These extractive industries, through their investment in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the political power the Foundation wields, help open up new potential markets for their own products through the spread of these technologies. This shows that while new biotechnology and policy discourses suggest the Green Revolution 2.0 is the next solution to global hunger it instead serves more to benefit existing geopolitical power structures at the expense of local farmers .

Competing Conferences: China and the Green Revolution in Africa

China’s interest in the modernisation and technological transformation of agriculture as a rising great power is particularly interesting. Especially in light of contemporary Green Revolution discourse which problematises agricultural efficiency and land policy specifically in Africa.

Official reports from the 8^th Ministerial Conference on China-Africa Cooperation and the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit make it clear that African agriculture is a key priority for both great powers . The hallmarks of the Green Revolution are particularly clear in President Biden’s remarks which include calls for investment in; infrastructure, fertiliser, irrigation and “climate-resilient seeds” and references to private-public sector collaboration . China asserts it’s cooperation and investments in Africa follow a long-standing ‘non-interference’ policy framed as an alternative to Western development practices that tie aid to democracy and other socio-political structures .

However, there is little evidence that the fundamentals of the Chinese agricultural development discourse within Africa are substantively different from that of the US. For example, one of the most significant crops for China in Africa is GM soy which is of relatively little domestic value for food security in Gambia and Senegal where such projects exist . Similarly, investment may not be tied to the political conditionalities required by Western institutions but does require significant involvement from Chinese public and private institutions whose main aim is to ensure profit and scalability to global markets.

The impact of this market orientation can be seen in the growth in trade between China and Africa. In the last two decades Chinese-Africa trade has increased by twenty times and while China’s import of African agricultural goods has been increasing in the last five years there is a significant gap between that and Chinese export of agricultural technologies and inputs into Africa. This suggests that China, like the US before it, now conducts a policy of export driven economic growth via developmentalist discourses that emphasises “shared futures” undermined by a practice of capital accumulation which concentrates power within the corporate-state complex and disenfranchises the very farmers it claims to help.

Conclusion

From an analysis of Green Revolution literature it is clear that decades of neo-Malthusian informed agricultural development policies that prioritise modernisation and industrialisation have not solved hunger and malnutrition despite delivering regular global food surpluses. While the interests of the great powers have been served under these policies physical, ecological, social and economic harm has been dealt to rural farming communities in the Global South .

If the current inequitable global food system is to be responsibly and successfully transitioned into one that provides food and nutrition equity then the role of the great powers in upholding existing inequitable systems in the name of solving global hunger must be understood and critiqued.