> > More productive in the sense that the same cultivated acreage now
>> feeds more people than it used to. India's pop is up 145% since 1960.
>
>a very common critique of "modern" crops (including the now-passé
>"Green Revolution" crops) is that their introduction involves
>increasing economies of scale and other advantages of bigness, along
>with the replacement of farm labor with machinery of various sorts.
>This means it's quite possible that a larger percentage of the rural
>population can't afford the new crops, even if the total production
>rises.
Could we please, just for argument's sake, separate the political economy from the technology for a moment? There's no doubt - is there? - that India is producing far more food than it did 30 or 50 years ago. Agrotech is responsible for a lot of that. Yes, of course the distribution leaves a lot to be desired. But could any humane regime ever dump modern techniques and go back to the old ways without forcing scores of millions to go hungry? Could India ever develop without freeing up a lot of agricultural labor for industrial pursuits? The country's population is still 72% rural, down from 82% in 1960. (China, over the same period, went from 84% to 61%.)
Doug