Green revolution : history, impact and future / by H.K. Jain.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-246) and indexes.

Cover -- Foreword -- Preface -- Contents -- Origin And Advance Of Traditional Agriculture -- Mendel'S Discoveries And Scientific Plant Breeding -- The Advent Of Inorganic Fertilisers -- Pest And Disease Management -- Modern Systems Of Irrigation -- New Farm Machines -- Transition To Modern Agriculture -- A Breakthrough In Wheat Yields -- The Rice Revolution -- High-Yielding Varieties Across Countries And Continents:The Impact -- Agriculture Of The Future:New Directions -- Author Index -- Subject Index.

A new paradigm of the organization of agricultural research which linked the two International Research Centers, CIMMYT in Mexico and IRRI in the Philippines, with the National Agricultural Research Institutions of the developing countries led to the Green Revolution. This new cooperative framework was conceived by the leaders of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation and carried forward and strengthened by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Now for the first time, a book written by H.K. Jain, a former Director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, who saw it all happen, provides in a single publication a complete and coherent account of the scientific discoveries, new technologies, and policy decisions, and their impact on world food production. The book goes on to examine the future direction of agriculture as it evolves in the 21st century and the new technologies which will be needed. Once the science of modern agriculture considered in the first six chapters, was in place,traditional agriculture started to change in the early years of the 20th century as described in chapter 7. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on the dwarf plant-types of wheat and rice selected by farmers in Japan and Taiwan respectively. They became the source of genes for fertilizer responsive, highyielding varieties of wheat at CIMMYT in Mexico and rice at IRRI in the Philippines. It is these varieties and others developed subsequently by multi-disciplinary groups of scientists in the national agricultural research systems of many developing countries, which spearheaded the Green Revolution. Following the establishment of the two International Agricultural Research Centers, Governments in many developing countries took unprecedented decisions to reorganize and strengthen their institutional infrastructure for research and development to foster such collaboration, and in order to evolve high-yielding varieties of their own, better adapted to the diverse agro-ecological conditions of their country and with grain quality characteristics preferred by their people. The impact of the high-yielding varieties on the production of wheat and rice in the developing countries is considered in Chapter 10. The new technologies came at a critical time when the densely populated countries of South Asia were facing serious food shortages. But it has had its costs and there is a growing realization now among the scientists that the world would need a different kind of high-yield agricultural technology in the years to come. It will have to be sustainable and safe for human health and for the environment, protecting the natural resources of land, soils, water and agro-biodiversity. The last Chapter considers some of the new concepts and directions of research which the scientists are now pursuing.