Dictionary

Green Revolution en · PROPN

Etymology

Coined by former chief of the US foreign aid program (USAID) William Steen Gaud in 1968, modeled on Red Revolution and White Revolution.

Meanings

1. The set of wide-ranging technological changes to agriculture in the 20th century, particularly in developing countries, which allowed for greater food production capacity.
   • Swaminathan went on to become the chief architect of India's “green revolution”, which would tranform a chronically hungry nation and perpetual ward of foreign donors into one of the world's largest food producers. 2023 October 7, John Reed, “Obituary: Plant geneticist whose work transformed a hungry nation”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 6:
   • The political journalist Alexander Cockburn was even less complimentary: "Aside from Kissinger, probably the biggest killer of all to have got the peace prize was Norman Borlaug, whose ‘green revolution’ wheat strains led to the death of peasants by the million." 2014 April 1, John Vidal, quoting Alexander Cockburn, “Norman Borlaug: humanitarian hero or menace to society?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • The Green Revolution, we keep hearing, is losing momentum. And sometimes it looks that way, with drought in Africa and Europe, famine in Somalia, one crisis after another in India, 17 or 18 civil wars in Africa. 1993 July 15, Richard Critchfield, “For Green Revolutionaries, A Latin American Triumph”, in International Herald Tribune:
   • The Green Revolution was, as [Norman] Borlaug recognized, merely a transition to an onrushing future where billions more will want the same things we in the United States and the rest of the developed world already have. 2018 April 24, Gary A. Gomby, “The Conversation”, in The Atlantic:

Forms

Synonyms

Third Agricultural Revolution

Translations (6)

fr révolution verte (Translations) · fi vihreä vallankumous (Translations) · hi हरित क्रांति (Translations) · ml ഹരിത വിപ്ലവം (Translations) · it rivoluzione verde (Translations) · tl Rebolusyong Luntian (Translations)