THE WORLD BANK AND THE IMF/117high-yield varieties of grain. These varieties were expected to fulfil the
food requirements of the inhabitants of these countries - based on the
argument that, as a result of population growth, traditional varieties
were not able to meet rising demand. This was the motivation behind
the 'Green Revolution'.
This 'revolution' was not brought about by the people of the
countries in question, it was imposed on them. In India, the 1965
drought provided the ideal pretext. Growth curbs on Indian agricul
tural production show that there had been uninterrupted growth -
until 1965, where one finds a small drop caused by the drought. India
requested limited food aid from the US, but the opportunity was
exploited to impose a series of ecologically unsustainable techniques.
Indeed, from the beginning of the 1960s onwards, capitalists had
been promoting intensive 'chemical' export-oriented agriculture.
The World Bank claimed to have saved India from famine. This is
patently untrue. Although India was not exporting its farm products,
its subsistence crops were enough to meet the country's needs. In this
vein, it is worth recalling that the Great Famine of Bengal in 1943
(between 2 and 3 million dead) was not caused by a lack of food but
rather by an increase in the price of foodstuffs caused by inflation -
itself caused by the war effort and speculation on food stocks.
Vandana Shiva has clearly condemned the 'Green Revolution' as
the project that upset the fragile balance the country had achieved
over centuries. She says it is wrong to claim that traditional
structures were and remain unable to fulfil the country's food
requirements. She has put forward a well-supported argument to the
effect that the real problem in the countries of the Third World is the
distribution of land and wealth.
In fact, the 'Green Revolution' is the profitable path agrochemical
MNCs have chosen to respond to these problems with science and
technology- and, above all, without making any changes to agrarian
social relations. In other words: no land reform. Vandana Shiva has
noted that, as the 'Green Revolution' has grown in strength,
traditional community structures have become dependent on
technology that they neither created nor control. To be sure, this so-
called revolution has been a major boon to multinational
corporations.
The agrobusiness industries of the North have imposed various
seed varieties on countries like India. These varieties did produce