alternatehistory.com

Norman Borlaug is not a well known man but he is said to have saved 1 billion people. The Iowa native developed new breeds of wheat and spread them throughout South America and India with assistance from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. Yields increased dramatically, an area of forest the size of California was spared from being cut down for farmland, farmers saw increased income, and a ton of people were saved from famine. And yet the Green Revolution is not universally praised. Some claim that the new types of wheat were bad for the environment by requiring increased use of pesticides, ignoring the huge number of trees saved from deforestation. Other claim that the increased productivity and resulting displacement of farmers into urbanization is a bad thing, these people apparantly not realizing how economic progress works. The most laughable claim is that the green revolution was a form of colonialism that had westerners "impose" their methods of farming and destroy the old way of life, these people apparantly thinking the third world should be nothing more than a giant living museum where the miseries of agricultural life are preserved for eternity.
Whatever the merits of the claims, the uproar caused funding to be cut in the 70s right as Borlaug was planning to take his miracle wheat to Africa.

As a result, while Asia and Latin America have vastly improved their farm productivity, it has barely increased in Sub-Saharan Africa. So what if the environmentalists were ignored?
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