Seminar: "Can Agricultural Biotechnology Alleviate Third World Poverty? Reflections on Green Revolutions Past and Present" by Jonathan Harwood - MIT, April 8, 2011

MIT Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History

Jonathan Harwood

Emeritus Professor of History of Science and Technology

University of Manchester

"Can Agricultural Biotechnology Alleviate Third World Poverty?

Reflections on Green Revolutions Past and Present"

Despite its success in boosting cereal yields, the “Green Revolution” in Latin
America and Asia has not made much impact upon rural poverty. Champions of genetic
modification now argue that the “gene revolution” can produce plant varieties that will improve
the prospects of poor farmers in the developing world. Although the new biotechnology does
offer possible advantages to smallholders, his potential is unlikely to be realized
because biotech research and development are concentrated in the private sector. Case studies
of Germany and Japan ca. 1900 demonstrate that public-sector breeding can effectively serve
resource-poor small farmers, as does recent Chinese work in biotechnology. Unless the
World Bank, USAID and other major donors are prepared to fund public-sector agricultural
research in the developing world much more generously than in recent decades, the “gene
revolution” is unlikely to be more successful than its predecessors in alleviating rural
poverty.

Friday April 8, 2011

2:30 to 4:30 pm

Building E51 Room 095

Corner of Wadsworth and Amherst Streets, Cambridge