Revisiting the adequacy of the economic policy narrative underpinning the Green Revolution

Agriculture and Human Values 39 (4):1357-1372 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

AbstractThe Green Revolution still exerts an important influence on agricultural policy as a technology-centred development strategy. A main policy narrative underpinning the Green Revolution was first expounded in Transforming Traditional Agriculture, a book published in 1964 by Nobel Prize-winning economist Ted Schultz. He famously argued that traditional farmers were ‘poor but efficient’. As farmers responded to economic incentives, technology-driven strategies would transform traditional agriculture into an engine of economic growth. Schultz relied on published ethnographic data and his own calculations to construct this policy narrative. My reanalysis of TTA focuses on its main case study, Panajachel, a village in Guatemala. I follow a narrative approach, evaluating whether Schultz’s story relates a plausible account of agricultural development in Panajachel and its region. I show how Schultz deliberately tried to hide that Mayan farmers in Panajachel were not challenged in technological terms and were able to reach relatively high economic returns. His interpretation of the Guatemalan rural economy ignored ethnic tensions dominating market exchange, a main barrier for agricultural development. I evaluate Schultz’s narrative further by tracing the subsequent evolution of Panajachel and its wider region. High-input strategies had to address ethnic barriers and change agents became embroiled in violent conflict along ethnic lines. Assessing the adequacy of Schultz’s contribution, from a narrative approach, shows how he ‘got the story wrong’ and that the Green Revolution policy narrative has an excessively narrow intellectual basis. New narratives should reserve a much more important place for institutional change in agricultural development.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Should policy ethics come in two colours: green or white?Malcolm Oswald - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (5):312-315.
A Translation Analysis of the Green Revolution in Bali.Thierry Bardini - 1994 - Science, Technology and Human Values 19 (2):152-168.
Making Peace with the Earth.Deane Curtin - 1995 - Environmental Ethics 17 (1):59-73.
Making Peace with the Earth.Deane Curtin - 1995 - Environmental Ethics 17 (1):59-73.
Ntu’ologico-Agnostic Reflections on the Fourth Industrial Revolution Premise.Ferdinand Mutaawe Kasozi - 2021 - Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 10 (3):11-27.
Green politics.Stephen Rainbow - 1993 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Response to Henschen: causal pluralism in macroeconomics.Mariusz Maziarz & Robert Mróz - 2019 - Journal of Economic Methodology 27 (2):164-178.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-06-29

Downloads
7 (#1,201,127)

6 months
2 (#668,348)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Jacob Van
United States Air Force Academy

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

How Narratives Explain.Paul Roth - 1989 - Social Research: An International Quarterly 56.
Wide adaptation of Green Revolution wheat: International roots and the Indian context of a new plant breeding ideal, 1960–1970.Marci R. Baranski - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 50:41-50.
Guatemala.[author unknown] - 1976 - Science and Society 40 (1):106-108.

Add more references