Mexico and the World
Vol. 4, No 3 (Summer 1999)
http://www.profmex.org/mexicoandtheworld/volume4/3summer99/doubly_green.html

The Doubly Green Revolution

Reviews:

Cornell University Press, 15 March 1999

The Guardian, 20 Nov. 1997

  New Agriculturist On-Line, Feb. 1998
 

Sarasota Herald Tribune, 25 Feb. 1998

Today more than three quarters of a billion people go hungry in a world where food is plentiful. A distinguished scientist here sets out an agenda for addressing this situation. Initially published in 1997 in the United Kingdom, the book is now available in the first edition produced for the Western Hemisphere. In it, the author has updated information to reflect current economic indicators. This volume includes a foreword written for the previous edition by Ismail Serageldin of the World Bank.

The original Green Revolution produced new technologies for farmers, creating food abundance. A second transformation of agriculture is now required--specifically, Gordon Conway argues a "doubly green" revolution that stresses conservation as well as productivity. He calls for researchers and farmers to forge genuine partnerships in an effort to design better plants and animals. He also urges them to develop (or rediscover) alternatives to inorganic fertilizers and pesticides, improve soil and water management, and enhance earning opportunities for the poor, especially women.
 
 

Review from The Guardian, 20 Nov. 1997

Thirty years ago, Gordon Conway fought to crush the green revolution. Now the ecologist is driving a revolution of his own, says Fred Pearce

Crop crusader

Sometimes first impressions are best. Sometimes they turn into a life?s work. Sometimes they help change the world. It has been like that for Gordon Conway (pictured above). In 1961, as a newly graduated ecologist from Wales, green behind the ears, he was dumped by the colonial agricultural service into the heart of Borneo.

His first job was to deal with invasions of bagworms, borers and bee bugs munching through cocoa plantations, oblivious to the regular soakings with cocktails of DDT, lindane and much more. Innocent of the ways of agriculturalists, he came up with the apparently absurd solution: stop spraying. "I was an ecologist," he says today. "I reasoned that the outbreaks of pests were being caused by the pesticides killing the natural predators."

He was right. Within days, the borers and bagworms were in retreat. A year later they had gone. It was, says Conway, the first example of what is known in the jargon as an "integrated pest management". Which effectively means: stop playing at Dr Jekyll and starting thinking like a proper scientist.

Conway?s bosses thanked him, but carried on playing Dr Jekyll. The "green revolution" was racing through the paddies and plantations of Asia, planting new high-yielding crop varieties soaked in chemicals to protect them from pests. "I could see there would be trouble. But I was only 22 and they told me not to be silly and go away," he recalls.

So he went away on a long intellectual march that will next spring take him back to the heart of the green revolution - as boss of the agency that funded most of its research. They may not have noticed, but he has a radical agenda for them - a new green revolution.

During Conway?s long march, epidemics of pests such as the brown planthopper ran through Asia?s new varieties of rice. It was not until 1986 that researchers demonstrated what ecologists such as Conway had long suspected: that lindane, the farmers? favourite pesticide, was killing spiders and other natural predators of the brown planthopper.

After that, integrated pest management took off. And Conway became a guru among people figuring out how to improve the wealth of rural people in developing countries without poisoning them and wrecking their environment. He was a top aid official with the Ford Foundation in India and, in 1992 became vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex, home of the much-admired Institute of Development Studies.

But now, in the wake of last year?s UN Food Summit and with the last green revolution grinding to a halt, he wants to craft a new revolution to feed the world. In the title of a new book published next week, Conway calls it a Doubly Green Revolution. "We still need those green swathes of high-yield rice and wheat," he says, "but we have got to be more environmentally friendly and we have got to get the food into the hands of the poorest people - the 800 million people who go hungry every day even when the grain stores are full," he says.

He does not reject the old revolution outright. People are better off than they were before, he insists. A generation ago, India had 300 million fewer people than today and a lot more starvation. But even so, "the poor are not getting the benefits from the revolution that they should". Too many have lost their livelihoods in the drive to grow more food on the best land at all costs.

The new revolution will again have science at its heart. Genetically engineered, drought-tolerant and salt-resistant crops could "green" huge areas of barren land where many of the world?s poorest people eke out a living, he says. But to work, the new revolution must feed people without destroying jobs, he says. The nineties? equivalent of the DDT sprayers of a generation ago, he says, is the combine harvester. He would banish it from much of the developing world. "Combine harvesters in many places have displaced thousands of farm workers." They don?t reduce poverty, they create it.

But he is an optimist. "We can have food for all in the 21st century," he says. And he is determined to be in the thick of the revolution that will provide it. Three years ago, Conway virtually kick-started research for the new green revolution with a report written for the then Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. It became a manifesto for getting World Bank cash back into international agricultural research.

And now he enters the lion?s den. Next April, Conway takes up a new job as the first non-US president of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York. The irony of the posting leaps out of his CV. It was the deep pockets of the foundation that funded much of the research behind the first, pesticides-soaked, green revolution. But now the boy who spotted that the emperor had no clothes is set to become the new emperor.

"For me, as an ecologist, to be appointed president at Rockefeller is an indication of how far the conventional wisdom has shifted." And he did a lot of the shifting.
 

Review from New Agriculturist On-Line, Feb. 1998

The "doubly green" revolution of the book's title is one that not only increases farmers' harvests even further than has been achieved to-date but one that does so without damaging the environment.

Is this possible? We may well ask, because the green revolution of 20-30 years ago managed to more than double yields of rice, wheat and maize by combining remarkable achievements in plant breeding with irrigation, fertilizer and agrochemical pest control. How can we get almost the same yield increases but without increasing dependence on agrochemical fertilizers and water and without the risk of pollution and erosion. We also

have to bear in mind that water shortage is likely to be a serious constraint?

Well, for a start, the plant breeders are going to have to deliver more miracles.

And Professor Conway believes this will require biotechnology as well as conventional plant breeding. For the wet tropics the rice plant is even now being totally re-designed so that all unproductive side-shoots or tillers are eliminated and more energy goes into the grain. In addition the crops of the dry tropics, for so long ignored or overlooked, are now also in the spotlight: crops like sorghum, millet, pigeonpea and chickpea. New varieties of these crops are being bred to mature in only two-thirds of the time of traditional varieties - 70-80 days instead of 110 days. And now varieties are being bred with disease and pest resistance. Both of these advances optimize land use, boost yield and neither of them has an adverse environmental impact. Indeed, the greater use of legumes like pigeonpea and chickpea improve soil fertility as well as human nutrition.

A further need is to work more closely with farmers, what Professor Conway and others call the 'participatory' approach to research and development. So, extension staff and scientists need to change their mind-set or attitude towards farmers.

"To die of hunger is the bitterest of fates", writes Professor Conway quoting from Homer's Odyssey. Bitter indeed when so many die not because of the absence of food but because they cannot afford to buy it. And here governments must accept the responsibility to ensure that the economic structure in their countries encourages food production, proper marketing and affordable prices.

Credit is another essential need if impoverished farmers are to improve productivity and Professor Conway quotes several dramatic examples of how credit has been the key to increased output.

Loans and other forms of aid on an international scale must also continue if international research and national agricultural efforts are to succeed. Donor funding has been declining these last years and yet, as the author points out, donors such as the US and the European countries have themselves also reaped benefits from the improved cereal varieties that have been developed by international research centres. In fact, the benefits they have derived have far exceeded the costs. A truly win-win situation.

"In today's world hunger and poverty affect us all," writes Professor Conway.

Review from Sarasota Herald Tribune, 25 Feb. 1998

The ``greening'' of the Green Revolution by the appointment of ecologist Gordon Conway to head the Rockefeller Foundation may improve farming practices worldwide. That change of direction could in turn reduce the runoff of fertilizer and pesticide chemicals to the benefit of marine ecosystems everywhere, including Florida coral reefs.

The Green Revolution was begun in 1943 by the Rockefeller Foundation, which funded research that led to the development of new strains of wheat, rice and other crops. Improved fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation practices boosted crop yields, but in many cases crops became more vulnerable to diseases, storms and other limiting factors. Eventually soil fertility and production peaked as pests developed resistance to the chemicals while population growth created new demands.

As a young ecologist in 1961, Conway was sent to North Borneo -- now part of Malaysia -- to preach the Green Revolution gospel. He found, however, that drenching the cocoa crop in pesticides killed the natural predators of worms and insects that fed on the cocoa. He ordered the spraying stopped and, within a year, had restored yields through what today is called integrated pest management (IPM) -- which blends the limited use of pesticides with natural controls.

Despite his success, Conway could not sell IPM to his fellow agronomists and scientists. Twenty-five years later, Conway was vindicated when scientists demonstrated that using lindane did more harm than good by killing the enemies of a pest that devastated rice harvests in the 1970s and 1980s.

Conway became an itinerant IPM evangelist, helping solve farming and environmental problems in Ethiopia, Pakistan and India by using what he calls sustainable farming strategies.

In April, his professional odyssey comes full circle as he becomes the first ecologist to head a major philanthropic organization.

While it may be foolish to vest too much hope in Conway's appointment, he feels it's a sign of ``how far the conventional wisdom has changed.'' If that's true, it bodes well for the health of the oceans, the ultimate recipients of all that enters rivers and streams.

For example, scientists believe that traces of DDT chemicals found in corals in the Florida Keys -- long after DDT was outlawed in America -- arrived from Central and South American farms, where DDT still is used. While it may be only one pollutant affecting the health of the corals, the DDT is an adverse

factor that illustrates the ecological truism that everything is connected to everything else.

In a different sense, that concept of linkage guides Conway in his new position. To make the ``Doubly Green'' revolution work, he said, IPM, bioengineering, soil and water conservation and ``genuine partnerships'' between farmers and scientists must flourish.

His appointment is a positive sign not only for farmers but also for the environment, which, victimized by the Green Revolution, deserves to benefit from the Doubly Green Revolution.