792 



here rests with the developing country, but the aid-giving countries 

 and the multilateral agencies which have promoted the agricultural 

 revolution need to give attention to the problem as well.^^ 



THE PROBLEM OF MARMETING 



How do the benefits of the Green Revolution reach the ultimate con- 

 sumer ? How is the farmer to be rewarded for his increased crop yield ? 

 At present the marketing systems in the countries which have been the 

 beneficiaries of the new seeds are simply imable to cope with the situ- 

 ation. In 1968 India's wheat harvest was 35 percent greater than any 

 previous record, and the storage transport, grading, and processing 

 operations were all unable to accommodate the surplus. The local 

 market intelligence system was similarly overwhelmed. In one year 

 the number of acres planted in the IE^8 rice in West Pakistan rose 

 from ten thousand to almost one million. The country had an export- 

 able surplus of rice, but no facilities to process it efficiently for the ex- 

 port market. In the Philippines the fast-maturing rice must now be 

 harvested during the monsoon and dried in mechanical driers. It is no 

 longer feasible to let the rice dry in the sun. Countries which imported 

 large amounts of U.S. grain in the 1950s and '60s and geared their 

 distribution networks to moving grain inland may now find those sys- 

 tems obsolete. On the other hand, such older systems as had served to 

 move food from the countryside to the cities have tended to atrophy 

 with disuse. India, Pakistan, and Indonesia have particular problems 

 of this type. 



An adequate marketing network requires an adequate transportation 

 system. The more agriculture in the LDCs turns from subsistence to 

 commercial enterprise, the greater this need becomes. In recognition 

 of this fact, one of the most favored development projects for at least 

 a decade has been the farm-to-market road. Both AID and the World 

 Bank have loaned hundreds of millions of dollars for such projects to 

 develop domestic markets, to link the hinterland with port cities, and 

 to reach world markets. Sometimes a road built for another purpose 

 can open up a market to the products of agriculture. A case in point is 

 the highway from Bangkok to Korat, in Thailand. Built essentially 

 to give the military quick access to Thailand's northeast, where Com- 

 munist guerrillas are active, the highway was important in making 

 Thailand a major exporter of corn because it linked large areas of 

 fertile soil with Bangkok and the world market. 



3«The simplified ecology Implicit In the Green Revolution presents a serious ouestlon as 

 to long-range global security. If agricultural production Is reduced to a few genotypes, any 

 pest that consumed one of these and that did not succumb to man's chemical controls could 

 wipe out all the crops of a nation or a continent. Such events have happened In the past 

 (the Irish potato famine, for example), and simplified genetic strains Increase the prob- 

 ability that they will happen in the future. The best protection against such a catastrophe 

 is a global early warning system to sound the alarm and set in motion the cooperative 

 efforts of plant pathologists and agronomists of all countries. In his Laureate address on 

 receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Norman E. Borlaug, the agronomist who heads the Inter- 

 national Wheat Research and Production Program of the International Maize and Wheat 

 Improvement Center in Mexico City warned : "The only protection against such epidemics, 

 in all countries. Is through resistant varieties developed by an intelligent, persistent, and 

 diversified breeding program, such as that being currently carried on in India, coupled with 

 a broad disease-surveillance svstem and a sound plant pathology program to support the 

 breeding program." This, he said, could help to "checljmate any Important changes In the 

 pathogens." (Norman E. Borlaug. "The Green Revolution: For Bread and Peace." Bulletin 

 of the Atomic Scientists (June 1971), page 43.) 



