814 



HUMAN DISLOCATIONS 



Increased agricultural productivity, concentrated selectively on the 

 larger farms, means that fewer farm workers will have jobs, that small- 

 er farmers will encounter hardship, that machines will replace hand 

 labor, and that the influx to the cities — already causing serious crowd- 

 ing, social tensions, and urban unemployment — will be greatly in- 

 creased. According to FAO Director- General Boerma, there is 

 already unemployment in the developing countries, excluding main- 

 land China, of some 100 million. The increase by 1980 in the working- 

 age population in these countries is estimated at 250 million, so that 

 to employ the available labor force by 1980 will require the creation 

 of about 350 million additional jobs, even without taking into ac- 

 count the additional displacement resulting from the Green Revolu- 

 tion.^* How much additional agricultural unemployment and drift to 

 the cities will be caused by the Green Revolution is difficult to esti- 

 mate, but it seems likely to be a significant addition to an already 

 strained situation. 



THE NEED FOR SOCIAL REFORM 



One of the most serious obstacles to the success of the Green Revolu- 

 tion lies outside the field of technolo^ altogether — although tech- 

 nology could conceivably play a role m solving it. That obstacle is 

 the often negative answer to the question : Are the benefits of that 

 revolution distributed for the good of society as a whole? Unfortu- 

 nately, in a number of instances the Green Revolution has had the 

 effect of widening the gap between the rich and the poor. The initial 

 impact of the new agricultural breakthrough has been to benefit the 

 more efficient, more well-to-do farmers. As Wharton points out : 



For them, it is easier to adopt the new higher-yield varieties since the financial 

 risk is less and they already have better managerial skills. When they do adopt ' 

 them, the doubling and trebling of yields means a corresponding increase in 

 their incomes." 



In short, the rich farmers can become richer, and may even capture 

 some of the markets earlier served by the small semi-subsistence 

 farmer. The poorer farmer, seeing the increasing share of the new, 

 wealth going to those who already precede him on the economic ladder, 

 may grow increasingly resentful. The landless poor, seeing the in- 

 creased availability of food supplies, quite naturally want a larger 

 share of any increased prosperity, and may be willing to take action to 

 get it. The clash two years ago in Tanjore, India, between landlords and 

 landless workers, in which 43 people were killed, is a very pertinent 

 illustration of the explosive situation which to some degree exists in 

 India already, and could easily be duplicated elsewhere. '^^ 



Equally worrisome, in the long run, is the prospect of technological 

 unemployment in the wake of agricultural progress. As fewer people 

 are needed to produce more food, those displaced tend to gravitate 



" Boerma. "Address to the Eighteenth General Conference of the International Federa- 

 tion of Agricultural Producers. . . .," op. cit., page 5. 



^Wharton. "The Green Revolution : Cornucopia or Pandora's Box?" op. clt., page 467. 



'"> An example which could be readily repeated Is that of the so-called Naxalite move- 

 ment in India, which ir.s^olves land seizure by violence and is encouraged by the Maoist 

 wing of India's Communist party. ' 



