Chris Smaje needs your help:
I’m no expert in this area, but the sort of data I typically see used to suggest the green revolution’s success is pretty unconvincing. I wrote a little piece with some general thoughts on this on the Stats Views website. I’d be interested if anyone can point me to evidence that avoids some of the traps I discuss therein.
Any thoughts?
Might be useful to write to Prabhu Pingali, Professor of Applied Economics and Management and Director of the
Tata-Cornell Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative at Cornell or Dr David Dawe, Senior Economist with FAO-Bangkok. I’m sure both will have a lot to say. I know they have both published in this area.
Derek Byerlee is working on a book that might interest Chris: about whether the Green Revolution and the “Borlaug hypothesis” have increased production and thereby saved non-ag land from development, or whether the increased production stimulated by the Green Revolution actually incentivized developing non-ag land because you could make more money by planting wheat than by leaving a forest, and he gave a presentation on it recently: http://www.slideshare.net/CIMMYT/the-land-that-feeds-us-growing-land-scarcity-and-the-borlaug-hypothesis-revisited. Lots of references in there of data that might be useful.
Thanks Luigi for featuring the comment and to Mike and Jenny for your thoughts – I’ll certainly follow up on your suggestions.