Green Revolution and

the Small Farmer

MARJORIE SALLAO MUYRONG
ECON 673 Literature Review Presentation
7 May 2014 , University of San Francisco

Motivation for Research Study

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Green Revolution began in the 1960s in the Philippines (Aguilar 2013, Viado
1997).

If the artificial fertilizers and pesticides in conventional agriculture are bad

why havent we reverted back to sustainable agriculture up until now?

This is the same question that Cowan and Gunby (1996) and Wilson and Tisdell
(2001) seek to answer.

Hence, this had brought me to this mission in my career to bring sufficient

evidence to tell the world that we have been slowly killing ourselves and our
children by being locked in conventional agriculture.

Research Question
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My literature review mainly focuses on understanding how the Green

Revolution and the other modern farming technologies since have had
been causing productivity slow down in agriculture due to loss of ecological
services which was caused by resource degradation (Murgai, et al 2001,
Byerlee 1992, Altieri 1999).

This may also be understood along the context of trying to understand

whether organic farming is better than conventional farming. However, I take
Green Revolution technologies as the treatment (if this was an experiment)
rather than organic farming and understand whether it really has detrimental
effects on agriculture.

Corollary to this, I touch on the concept of lock in technology (i.e.

coordination problem) to address my motivation for the research.

Resource Degradation and Productivity

Slow Down
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The issue of sustainabilty associated with Green Revolution mainly involve the
concern for a decrease in the growth in productivity (Murgai, et al 2001).

Particularly, we are talking about productivity slow down brought about by

resource degradation (Murgai, et al 2001).

Related to this resource degradation issue is the biodiversity loss caused by

pesticide use and biological simplification (Altieri 1999).

Gollop and Swinand (1998) develops a microeconomic model of welfare

maximization that takes into account the sustainability issue to develop the
concept of total resource productivity:

= H(Y, S, X, T)

Resource Degradation and Productivity

Slow Down

Loss of Ecological Services in the

Agricultural Sector
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Altieri (1999) explains that biodiversity is synonymous to having an array of

ecological services such as crop protection from pests and ensuring soil
fertility.

In contrast, the conventional farming methods today involves the dominance

of few species of cultivated crops and domesticated animals in vast land areas
(Altieri 1999).

Hence, we find that there are no longer free ecological services that farmers
can take advantage of leading to additional production costs on top of health
costs to farmers.

Loss of Ecological Services in the

Agricultural Sector
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Aldy, et al (1998) use the circular flow to address the issue of sustainability by
including the natural resources as one of the endowments (i.e. stock)
alongside labor and capital that can be used for economic production in one
of the three sectors.

Any excess from the use of such services and non-ecological goods and
services must be conserved (Aldy, et al 1998).

Aldy, et al (1998) also use the production possibilities frontier looking at

societys production trade-off between food and ecological servicesa model
similar to that of Gollop and Swinand (1998).

Loss of Ecological Services in the

Agricultural Sector

Loss of Ecological Services in the

Agricultural Sector

Path Dependence since the Green

Revolution
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Economic processes can be self-reinforcingeven if the resulting dominant

technology is less efficient than other potential technologies (Cowan and
Gunby 1996).

This, of course, reminds of our Prisonners Dilemma games where all the small
farmers having individual incentives to choose the conventional farming
technology leading to tragedy.

The incentive here is most probably due to lower net present value of returns
from organic farming compared to conventional farming (Wilson and Tisdell
2001).

Moreover, it is easier for small farmers to adapt a technology that is also

being adapted by other people (due to technological externalities) ultimately
leading for the society to lock in that technology (Cowan and Gunby 1996).

Prospects of Organic Farming for Small

Farmer
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Unfortunately (or more fortunately), the success stories of Green

Revolution was not the same story for the small farmers (Altieri 2002).

The small farmers were not able to fully integrate into the modern
agricultural systems which require high human capital from those managing
the farms putting them in greater disadvantage for small farmers have been
known to overapply chemical inputs (Altieri 2002).

Hence, we can conclude that Green Revolution's technological package was

simply not recognizing how complex the circumstances of small peasants are
(Altieri 2002).

Prospects of Organic Farming for Small

Farmers
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Altieri (2002) explains that what must be done is to develop farming

technologies that would more directly address the circumstances of the
farmes such in the case of a natural resource management (NRM) strategy.

Altieri (2002) argues that the traditional farming systems that has been
passed down from generations to generations that are adapted to local
farming conditions are successful in maintaining the subsistence of the
farmers without any need of machines or chemical inputs throughout
centuries.

Hence, these local farming systems may actually be models for an efficient
agroecological system that is based upon biodiversity (Altieri 2002).