816 



Ward Jackson has suggested rural agricultural centers where peas- 

 ants forced off the land by the Green Revolution could be employed 

 in "agro-industries" such as warehouses and fertilizer plants. Other 

 measures are doubtless being contemplated, as the LDCs seek to rec- 

 oncile the need for maximum food production with a much wider 

 pattern of land ownership. Again, the United States has a vital 

 stake in the methods chosen by the LDCs to redistribute land 

 ownership. 



AGRICULTURAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION 



In short, the consequences of genetic developments that produced 

 the new grains are likely to be revolutionary, not only in the techno- 

 logical sense, but politically and socially as well. Vu Van Thai, in a 

 paper presented to the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group, 

 June, 1969, identified a number of forms of tensions that he could 

 foresee: 



* * ♦ Modernization causes instability by shifting the relative importance 

 and status of the various classes, thus generating social stresses. 



* * * The emergence of a political force in the rural areas undergoing the, 

 "Green Revolution" is all but ineluctable. The questions are only whether the 

 political institutions of the country will evolve fast enough to allow for the peace- . 

 ful emergence of this force into the national political fabric, and whether gov- 

 ernments would be able to design and implement policies which would solve or 

 at least keep under control the problems generated ♦ ♦ *. 



* * * The richer farmers will become richer. ♦ ♦ * Such a development could 

 well lead to a net reduction in the income of the smaller, poorer, and less venture- 

 some fanners. This raises massive problems of welfare and equity. If only a small 

 fraction of the rural population moves into the modem century while the bulk 

 remains behind, or perhaps even goes backward, the situation will be highly 

 explosive. 



* * * One might foresee that the issue of giving priority to developing one 

 area over another will become increasingly a politically loaded matter. 



Unless countries revise drastically their economic development strategies and 

 policies, to give first priority to the objective of creation of employment; and 

 unless they take measures to reduce income disparities and to further extend in- 

 comes to the poorer classes, many people will still go hungry or remain under- 

 fed. * * • Thus, if internal demand Is not enlarged, measures to restrict produc- 

 tion will have to be adopted. 



* • * The "Green Revolution" is likely to increase tensions between landlords 

 and tenants [and generate] pressure on the part of tenants for greater agrarian 

 reform * * *. 



* • • We are facing a kind of vicious dilemma : In order to keep demand up 

 to the level of increased agricultural production, a government must either accel- 

 erate considerably the rate of growth of the economy or else embark on large 

 expenditures for welfare. To do either of these, it must mobilize more and 

 more resources from the agricultural sector ; by so doing it is slowing down the 

 rate of increase of farmers' real income, thus triggering discontent.** 



An analysis by Richard Critchfield sees the situation as posing a 

 new form of competition between communist and non-communist 

 countries. He declares: "Virtually every FAO official I interviewed 

 believes some form of social revolution will follow the agricultural 

 revolution in all too many of the poor countries." Moreover, "The gen- 

 eral feeling seemed to be that the allegiance of the poor countries is 

 likely to go to whoever can devise a system that allows the fastest 



""Agricultural Innovation and Its IrapHcationi: for Domestic Political Patt«»rns In 

 Southeast Asia." In "The Green Revolution : Symposium on Science and Foreign Policy," 

 op. cit.. pages 18&-95. 



