Controversy about agricultural technology lessons from the green revolution

The development and introduction of transgenically modified organisms to enhance crop and animal production has generated considerable controversy about potential food safety and environmental impacts. The introduction, in tropical Latin America and Asia, of high yielding varieties of wheat, maize and rice beginning in the late 1960s was also controversial. Critics argued that the new technology was biased against the poor – it would make the rich richer and the poor poorer. In this paper, I review the equity andproductivity impacts of the "green revolution" technology and draw several inferences about evaluation of the effects of the new biotechnologies in agricultural production.

Keywords: transgenically modified organisms, green revolution, income distribution, mechanical technology, biological technology, farm size, employment, allocation of scientific and technical resources