RECONSIDERING THE GREEN-REVOLUTION - DIVERSITY AND STABILITY IN CRADLE AREAS OF CROP DOMESTICATION

This paper reconsiders two widely held hypotheses about the effects of the green revolution, that it led to biological simplification and in stability. The hypothesis of biological simplification (genetic erosio n) is tested with evidence from Andean agriculture, where farmers main tain a significant degree of crop diversity even as they adopt modem c rop varieties. The hypothesis of increased instability is tested with evidence from Asia where wheat and rice yields show no general pattern of increased instability. Neither of these hypotheses is confirmed. T he conventional wisdom about the green revolution should be reconsider ed with emphasis on resilience and variation in modernizing farming sy stems.