Description
Book SynopsisCereal grains like wheat and rice are important, because they are the basis of most food supplies. Yields of such crops have increased dramatically during the past 100 years and especially since 1950, leading to what was often called the Green Revolution. This book examines why the United States, India, Britain and Mexico each sought to develop high yield wheat production. Although the increase in yield has been attributed to plant breeding science, security concerns and management of foreign exchange were prime motivators of the new technologies. This relationship has not been previously developed in studies of agricultural modernization, and will plague future efforts to make agriculture equitable and sustainable.
Trade Review'...an important book on the development of wheat breeding in the United States, Great Britain, India and Mexico during the 20th century...The book's strength is its descriptive power, especially in intellectual hisotr...Throughout, Perkins provides his readers with an excellent introduction to a variety of complex topics...' * Kathy J Cooke, Endeavour Vol. 22 (3), 1998. *
Table of Contents1. Political Ecology and Yield Transformation ; 2. Wheat, People, and Plant Breeding ; 3. Wheat Breeding: Coalescence of a Modern Science, 1900-1939 ; 4. Plant Breeding in its Institutional and Political Economic Setting, 1900-1940 ; 5. The Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico: The New International Politics for Plant Breeding, 1941-1945 ; 6. Hunger, Overpopulation, and Natural Security: A New Strategic Theory for Plant Breeding, 1945-1956 ; 7. Wheat Breeding and the Exercise of American Power, 1940-1970 ; 8. Wheat Breeding and the Consolidation of Indian Autonomy, 1940-1970 ; 9. Wheat Breeding and the Reconstruction of Post-Imperial Britain, 1935-1954 ; 10. Science and the Green Revolution, 1945-1975 ; Epilogue: Implications of History the Future
