300 Agricultural Revolutions and Change
take some of the credit for its success. The re-election of President Marcos in 1969
owed much to the attainment of self-sufficiency in rice production.
The new wheats also proved popular in Argentina, where their early maturity
made them appropriate for double-cropping with soybeans.^21 And in Egypt wheat
yields took off in 1969, initially growing at over 60kg/ha per year but after 1980
at 200kg/ha.^22 The hybrid maizes were also successfully introduced into Egypt and
into Kenya and Zimbabwe. However, the biggest impact came from their adop-
tion in Latin America. To begin with this was slow because the traditional peasant
farmers were reluctant to switch from the open-pollinated varieties which could be
retained as seed on the farm for next year’s harvest. However, by the early 1980s
half the maize area of Latin America was sown to hybrids and yields had grown by
a third since 1960. Chile, in particular, experienced dramatic growth, at over
200kg/ha per year after take-off in 1964. According to Donald Plucknett of the
CGIAR this is the highest sustained growth rate that any cereal has so far experi-
enced.^23 Average yields in 1985 were approaching 6 tons/ha.
The uptake of the new rice varieties was similarly dramatic. Twenty tons of
IR8 seed were sent to India in 1966 and a further 5 tons to other Asian and Latin
American countries. In Colombia it gave rise to a number of local variants devel-
oped by the Centre for Tropical Agriculture (Centro Internacional de Agricultura
Tropical – CIAT) which soon replaced the indigenous varieties. By 1985 average
yields were approaching 5 tons/ha and rice had become the dominant Colombian
food crop.^24 Another remarkable transformation occurred in Indonesia, where oil
revenues were used to finance the adoption of the new varieties and their accom-
panying packages. The take-off occurred in 1967, with subsequent rice-yield
increases of over 100kg/ha (Figure 13.6).
Figure 13.6 The growth of rice yields in Indonesia