The Green Revolution most certainly did improve the lives of tens of millions of low income farmers in India. The high yield crops also permanently removed the spectre of famine from India, saving tens of millions from starvation.

To retcon this into “only rich farmers benefited” is weird. Certainly there are many rich farmers out there. Of course their incomes increased when they could plant more productive crops. But so what if they make money? They’re feeding everyone!

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seltzered_ 15 hours ago | parent [-]

I encourage you to do a deeper dive into the sources of famine in India - specifically impacts of Churchill in WW2 just before the Green Revolution. See https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/29/asia/churchill-bengal-famine-... (based on https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018... ) along with this documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T31MFNLJKJw . While there are drought induced famines, I still wonder what other approaches could be done (ranging from land-use changes, etc.)

Also ask yourself what the tradeoffs were in terms of biodiversity losses and agricultural diversity losses due to Green Revolution, and areas where it didnt work out like the attenpts of it on Balinese subak rice agriculture practices (the book 'Priests and Programmers' should have more info)

	▲	testdelacc1 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Why would you assume I don’t know about the Bengal famine? I know it intimately. But it’s really not relevant to the discussion of whether more productive crops are better for everyone, farmers and consumers alike. It’s really weird to attempt to school me on Indian history too. “Ask yourself” indeed. If you have something to say on the subject, say it. I’m almost certain you have a very surface level understanding of Indian history if you’re trying to link the Bengal famine during WWII instead of talking about the very real food shortages in India post-1947. People were dying because they didn’t have enough food to eat. India had to beg for food aid, which America provided after extorting and humiliating India. Thanks to these crops that never happened again. Biodiversity is an afterthought when children are dying of starvation and you sound very out of touch for bringing it up.