历史小径·世界史英语精读30篇（4）
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The Green Revolution and Its Uneven Harvest
绿色革命及其不均衡收获
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Beginning in the 1940s, agricultural scientists developed high-yield wheat and rice varieties adapted to chemical fertilizers and irrigation.
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Funded by U.S. foundations and Cold War-era development agencies, the Green Revolution prioritized productivity over ecological resilience or local seed sovereignty.
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In Punjab and Central Luzon, yields doubled within a decade—but smallholders often lacked capital to afford new inputs, deepening rural inequality.
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Monocultures expanded rapidly, increasing vulnerability to pests and reducing dietary diversity despite calorie surpluses.
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Groundwater tables dropped sharply in India and Mexico as subsidized electricity encouraged excessive pumping for irrigation.
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Women’s labor intensified without corresponding recognition in land titles or extension services, reinforcing gendered divisions in agrarian knowledge.
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Critics argue the model displaced agroecological practices that had sustained soil health and pest resistance for centuries.
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Yet food insecurity declined dramatically in targeted regions, enabling urbanization and industrial growth previously constrained by subsistence limits.
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Today’s climate-smart agriculture initiatives explicitly reject top-down transfer, instead co-designing solutions with farmer cooperatives and indigenous knowledge holders.
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The Green Revolution endures as both cautionary tale and pragmatic precedent for scaling innovations amid structural inequity.