786 



The essence of the new strains of wheat, rice, and com is that they 

 yield their abundance by responding to water and fertilizer; these 

 must be provided. Fewer hands are needed on the farm, with the new 

 crops, so work must be provided elsewhere for those no longer required 

 to plant, tend, and harvest. Crops must be protected from pests and de- 

 cay, delivered to markets, and sold to hungry populations who must 

 somehow secure the means to buy. Capital and credit, organization, 

 and employment for the displaced farm workers are needed in order 

 to translate opportunity into actuality. In particular, adequate credit 

 arrangements are essential to support the development of the infra- 

 structure of modern agriculture. 



TIIE PROBLEM OF WATER 



To produce up to their potential, the new seeds require intensive ap- 

 plication of water in carefully controlled doses throughout the grow- 

 ing period. Reliance on the vagaries of natural rainfall, even in 

 monsoon Asia, is not enough; irrigation is essential. In most Asian 

 countries, about a quarter to a half of the rice lands are irrigated." 

 For the success of the Green Revolution, additional irrigation facilities 

 are needed. The present alternatives are big dams and irrigation canals 

 or small tube wells drilled locally. 



Indian and Pakistani farmers have installed thousands of tubewells 

 (a tubewell is a cj^lindrical shaft driven into the ground), and have 

 bought thousands of pump sets, both electric and diesel. The advan- 

 tages of these small-scale irrigation schemes are that they can be set up 

 rather quickly, take much less capital per unit of irrigated land than 

 the large dams, take less land out of production, and can be controlled 

 better from the user's side. From the standpoint of an overall develop- 

 ment plan, however, it is difficult to administer and control these 

 schemes; their construction and operation require a large amount of 

 foreign exchange. Furthermore, as the FAO points out, control of 

 exploitation may be difficult if small-scale irrigation facilities are 

 operated by private interests.^^ 



Large-scale irrigation facilities bring huge tracts of land under irri- 

 gation at one time. They make possible large planned increases in agri- 

 cultural production. But they take great amounts of capital, often 

 straining or unbalancing the investment capacity of the developing 

 nations. The Mekong River development plan, for example, which 

 covers a broad area in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, would 

 require $2 billion dollars. Invested over a 20-pear period, it would 

 amount to about one-third of the annual national income of the four 

 countries concerned, and would exceed the annual new investment of 

 all the countries of Southeast Asia combined.^® Furthermore, large- 

 scale projects take a long time to be finished, with no benefits to the 

 local agriculture while construction is going forward. For example, 

 72 major irrigation projects were undertaken in India between 1951 

 and 1965, covering a total of 13.4 million hectares. However, only a 



2« Clifton R. Wharton. Jr. "The Green Revolution: Cornucopia or Pandora's Box?" For- 

 plen Affairs, {April. 19fi9), page 465. , . „ .^ 



ar United Nations. Food and Aerlonlture Organization. "Provisional Indicative World 

 Plan for Agricultural Development." Vol. 1 (Rome, Ital.v. F.A.O.. August. 1969). page 60. 



"Wharton, "The Green Revolution : Cornucopia or Pandora's Box?" op. clt., pages 46»-6. 



