Molecular gastronomy includes the study of how different cooking temperatures affect eggs, their viscosity, surface tension, and different ways of introducing air into them.Spherification of juices and other liquids is a technique of molecular gastronomy.A molecular gastronomy rendition of eggs Benedict served by wd~50 in New York City. The cubes are deep-fried Hollandaise sauce.
Adam Melonas's
signature preparation is an edible floral center piece named the
"Octopop": a very low temperature cooked octopus fused using transglutaminase, dipped into an orange and saffron carrageenan gel and suspended on dill flower stalks
Baumé – soaking a whole egg for a month in alcohol to create a coagulated egg. Named after the French chemist Antoine Baumé (1728–1804).
History
Heated bath used for low temperature cookingRotary evaporator used in the preparation of distillates and extractsFrench chemist and cook Hervé This, known as "The Father of Molecular Gastronomy"Heston Blumenthal dislikes the term 'molecular gastronomy', believing it makes the practice sound "complicated" and "elitist."
There are many branches of food science that study different aspects
of food, such as safety, microbiology, preservation, chemistry,
engineering, and physics. Until the advent of molecular gastronomy,
there was no branch dedicated to studying the chemical processes of
cooking in the home and in restaurants. Food science has primarily been
concerned with industrial food production and, while the disciplines may
overlap, they are considered separate areas of investigation.
The creation of the discipline of molecular gastronomy was
intended to bring together what had previously been fragmented and
isolated investigations into the chemical and physical processes of
cooking into an organized discipline within food science, to address
what the other disciplines within food science either do not cover, or
cover in a manner intended for scientists rather than cooks.
The term "molecular and physical gastronomy" was coined in 1988 by Hungarian physicist Nicholas Kurti and French physical chemist Hervé This. In 1992, it became the title for a set of workshops held in Erice, Italy (originally titled "Science and Gastronomy")
that brought together scientists and professional cooks for discussions
about the science behind traditional cooking preparations. Eventually,
the shortened term "molecular gastronomy" became the name of the
approach, based on exploring the science behind traditional cooking
methods.
Kurti and This considered the creation of a formal discipline around the subjects discussed in the meetings.
After Kurti's death in 1998, the name of the Erice workshops were
changed by This to "The International Workshop on Molecular Gastronomy
'N. Kurti'". This remained the sole director of the subsequent workshops
from 1999, and continued his research in the field of molecular
gastronomy at the Inra-AgroParisTech International Centre for Molecular
Gastronomy, remaining in charge of organizing the international
meetings.
Precursors
The idea of using techniques developed in chemistry to study food is not a new one, for instance the discipline of food science
has existed for many years. Kurti and This acknowledged this fact and
though they decided that a new, organized and specific discipline should
be created within food science that investigated the processes in
regular cooking (as food science was primarily concerned with the
nutritional properties of food and developing methods to process food on
an industrial scale), there are several notable examples throughout
history of investigations into the science of everyday cooking recorded
as far as back to 18th century.
The concept of molecular gastronomy was perhaps presaged by Marie-Antoine Carême,
one of the most famous French chefs, who said in the early 19th century
that when making a food stock "the broth must come to a boil very
slowly, otherwise the albumin coagulates, hardens; the water, not having
time to penetrate the meat, prevents the gelatinous part of the
osmazome from detaching itself."
Raymond Roussel (1877-1933)
French writer Raymond Roussel, in his 1914 story "L'Allée aux lucioles" ("The Alley of Fireflies"), introduces a fictionalized version of French chemist Antoine de Lavoisier
who, in the story, creates an apparently edible semi-permeable coating
("invol ...") that he uses to encase a tiny frozen sculpture made from
one type of wine, which is immersed in another type of wine. The story
cites the fictional event as significant "in both the annals of science
and the history of improved gastronomy."
Evelyn G. Halliday and Isabel T. Noble
In 1943 the University of Chicago Press published a book titled Food Chemistry and Cookery by the then University of Chicago Associate Professor of Home Economics Evelyn G. Halliday and University of Minnesota
Associate Professor of Home Economics Isabel T. Noble. In the foreword
of the 346-page book, the authors state that, "The main purpose of this
book is to give an understanding of the chemical principles upon which
good practices in food preparation and preservation are based."
The book includes chapters such as "The Chemistry of Milk", "The
Chemistry of Baking Powders and Their Use in Baking", "The Chemistry of
Vegetable Cookery" and "Determination of Hydrogen Ion Concentration" and
contains numerous illustrations of lab experiments including a Distillation Apparatus for Vegetable Samples and a Pipette for Determining the Relative Viscosity of Pectin Solutions. The professors had previously published The Hows and Whys of Cooking in 1928.
Belle Lowe
In 1932, Belle Lowe, then the professor of Food and Nutrition at Iowa State College, published a book titled Experimental Cookery: From The Chemical And Physical Standpoint
which became a standard textbook for home economics courses across the
United States. The book is an exhaustively researched look into the
science of everyday cooking referencing hundreds of sources and
including many experiments. At a length of over 600 pages with section
titles such as "The Relation Of Cookery To Colloidal Chemistry",
"Coagulation Of Proteins", "The Factors Affecting The Viscosity Of Cream
And Ice Cream", "Syneresis",
"Hydrolysis Of Collagen" and "Changes In Cooked Meat And The Cooking Of
Meat", the volume rivals or exceeds the scope of many other books on
the subject, at a much earlier date.
Elizabeth Cawdry Thomas
Though
rarely credited, the origins of the Erice workshops (originally
entitled "Science and Gastronomy") can be traced back to cooking teacher
Elizabeth Cawdry Thomas, who studied at Le Cordon Bleu in London and ran a cooking school in Berkeley, California. The one-time wife of a physicist,
Thomas had many friends in the scientific community and an interest in
the science of cooking. In 1988, while attending a meeting at the Ettore
Majorana Center for Scientific Culture in Erice, Thomas had a
conversation with Professor Ugo Valdrè of the University of Bologna,
who agreed with her that the science of cooking was an undervalued
subject, and encouraged Kurti to organize a workshop at the Ettore
Majorana Center. However nothing happened until Kurti met Hervé This:
both approached the director of the Ettore Majorana center, physicist Antonino Zichichi, who liked the idea. They invited the food science writer Harold McGee to join them as invited co-director of the first workshops in 1992.
University of Oxford
physicist Nicholas Kurti advocated applying scientific knowledge to
culinary problems. He was one of the first television cooks in the UK,
hosting a black-and-white television show in 1969 entitled The Physicist in the Kitchen, where he demonstrated techniques such as using a syringe to inject hot mince pies with brandy in order to avoid disturbing the crust. That same year, he held a presentation for the Royal Society of London (also entitled "The Physicist in the Kitchen") in which he stated:
I think it is a sad reflection on
our civilization that while we can and do measure the temperature in the
atmosphere of Venus we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés.
Kurti demonstrated making meringue in a vacuum chamber,
the cooking of sausages by connecting them across a car battery, the
digestion of protein by fresh pineapple juice, and a reverse baked alaska—hot inside, cold outside—cooked in a microwave oven. Kurti was also an advocate of low temperature cooking, repeating 18th century experiments by British scientist Benjamin Thompson
by leaving a 2 kg (4.4 lb) lamb joint in an oven at 80 °C (176 °F).
After 8.5 hours, both the inside and outside temperature of the lamb
joint were around 75 °C (167 °F), and the meat was tender and juicy.
With his wife Giana, Kurti edited an anthology on food and science by fellows and foreign members of the Royal Society.
Hervé
This started collecting "culinary precisions" (old kitchen wives' tales
and cooking tricks) the 24th of March 1980, and started testing these
precisions to see which held up; his collection eventually numbered some
25,000. In 1995, he received a PhD in Physical Chemistry of Materials,
for which he wrote his thesis on "La gastronomie moléculaire et
physique" (molecular and physical gastronomy). He served as an adviser
to the French minister of education, lectured internationally, and was
invited to join the lab of Nobel-winning molecular chemist Jean-Marie Lehn. This has published several books in French, four of which have been translated into English, including Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor, Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking, Cooking: The Quintessential Art, and Building a Meal: From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism.
He currently publishes a series of essays in French, and hosts free monthly seminars on molecular gastronomy at the INRA
in France. He gives free and public seminars on molecular gastronomy
every month, and annually gives a public and free course on molecular
gastronomy. Hervé This also authors a website and a pair of blogs on the
subject in French, and publishes monthly collaborations with French
chef Pierre Gagnaire on Gagnaire's website.
Objectives
The
objectives of molecular gastronomy, as defined by Hervé This, are
seeking for the mechanisms of culinary transformations and processes
(from a chemical and physical point of view) in three areas:
the social phenomena linked to culinary activity
the artistic component of culinary activity
the technical component of culinary activity
The original fundamental objectives of molecular gastronomy were defined by This in his doctoral dissertation as:
Investigating culinary and gastronomical proverbs, sayings and old wives' tales
Exploring existing recipes
Introducing new tools, ingredients and methods into the kitchen
Inventing new dishes
Using molecular gastronomy to help the general public understand the contribution of science to society
Hervé This later recognized points 3, 4, and 5 as being not entirely
scientific endeavors (more application of technology and educational),
and has revised the list.
Areas of investigation
Prime topics for study include
How ingredients are changed by different cooking methods
How all the senses play their own roles in our appreciation of food
The mechanisms of aroma release and the perception of taste and flavor
How and why we evolved our particular taste and flavor sense organs and our general food likes and dislikes
How cooking methods affect the eventual flavor and texture of food ingredients
How new cooking methods might produce improved results of texture and flavor
How our brains interpret the signals from all our senses to tell us the "flavor" of food
How our enjoyment of food is affected by other influences, our environment, our mood, how it is presented, who prepares it, etc.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the term started to be used to
describe a new style of cooking in which some chefs began to explore new
possibilities in the kitchen by embracing science, research,
technological advances in equipment and various natural gums and hydrocolloids produced by the commercial food processing industry.
It has since been used to describe the food and cooking of a number of
famous chefs, though many of them do not accept the term as a
description of their style of cooking.
Despite their central role in the popularisation of science-based
cuisine, both Adria and Blumenthal have expressed their frustration
with the common mis-classification of their food and cooking as
"molecular gastronomy",
On 10 December 2006 Blumenthal and Harold McGee published a 'Statement
on the "New Cookery" in the Observer in order to summarise what they saw
as the central tenets of modern cuisine. Ferran Adria of El Bulli and
Thomas Keller of the French Laundry and Per Se signed up to this and
together released a joint statement in 2006 clarifying their approach to
cooking,
stating that the term "molecular gastronomy" was coined in 1992 for a
single workshop that did not influence them, and that the term does not
describe any style of cooking.
In February 2011, Nathan Myhrvold published Modernist Cuisine,
which led many chefs to further classify molecular gastronomy versus
modernist cuisine. Myhrvold believes that his cooking style should not
be called molecular gastronomy.
Edible paper made from soybeans and potato starch, for use with edible fruit inks and an inkjet printer
Aromatic accompaniment: gases trapped in a bag, a serving device, or
the food itself; an aromatic substance presented as a garnish or creative serveware; or a smell produced by burning
Presentation style is often whimsical or avant-garde, and may include unusual serviceware
Unusual flavor combinations (food pairings) are favored, such as combining savory and sweet
Using ultrasound to achieve more precise cooking times
Alternative names and related pursuits
The term molecular gastronomy was originally intended to refer only to the scientific investigation of cooking, though it has been adopted by a number of people and applied to cooking itself or to describe a style of cuisine.
Modernist cuisine, which shares its name with a cookbook by Nathan Myhrvold, and which is endorsed by Ferran Adrià of El Bulli and David Chang
Molecular cuisine
Molecular cooking
New cuisine
New cookery
Nueva cocina
Progressive cuisine
Techno-emotional cuisine—term preferred by elBulli research and development chef Ferran Adrià
Technologically forward cuisine
Vanguard cuisine
Techno-cuisine
No singular name has ever been applied in consensus, and the term
"molecular gastronomy" continues to be used often as a blanket term to
refer to any and all of these things—particularly in the media. Ferran Adrià hates the term "molecular gastronomy" and prefers 'deconstructivist' to describe his style of cooking. A 2006 open letter by Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller and Harold McGee published in The Times used no specific term, referring only to "a new approach to cooking" and "our cooking".
Food technology is a branch of food science that addresses the production, preservation, quality control and research and development of food products.
It may also be understood as the science of ensuring that a
society is food secure and has access to safe food that meets quality
standards.
Early scientific research into food technology concentrated on food preservation. Nicolas Appert's development in 1810 of the canning
process was a decisive event. The process wasn't called canning then
and Appert did not really know the principle on which his process
worked, but canning has had a major impact on food preservation
techniques.
Louis Pasteur's research on the spoilage of wine
and his description of how to avoid spoilage in 1864, was an early
attempt to apply scientific knowledge to food handling. Besides research
into wine spoilage, Pasteur researched the production of alcohol, vinegar, wines and beer, and the souring of milk. He developed pasteurization – the process of heating milk and milk products to destroy food spoilage and disease-producing organisms. In his research into food technology, Pasteur became the pioneer into bacteriology and of modern preventive medicine.
Developments in food technology have contributed greatly to the food
supply and have changed our world. Some of these developments are:
Instantized Milk Powder – Instant milk powder has become the basis for a variety of new products that are rehydratable. This process increases the surface area of the powdered product by partially rehydrating spray-dried milk powder.
Freeze-drying – The first application of freeze drying was most likely in the pharmaceutical
industry; however, a successful large-scale industrial application of
the process was the development of continuous freeze drying of coffee.
High-Temperature Short Time Processing
– These processes, for the most part, are characterized by rapid
heating and cooling, holding for a short time at a relatively high
temperature and filling aseptically into sterile containers.
Decaffeination of Coffee and Tea – Decaffeinated coffee and tea was first developed on a commercial basis in Europe around 1900. The process is described in U.S. patent 897,763. Green coffee beans are treated with water, heat and solvents to remove the caffeine from the beans.
Process optimization
– Food Technology now allows production of foods to be more efficient,
Oil saving technologies are now available on different forms. Production
methods and methodology have also become increasingly sophisticated.
Aseptic packaging
– the process of filling a commercially sterile product into a sterile
container and hermetically sealing the containers so that re-infection
is prevented. Thus, this results into a shelf stable product at ambient
conditions.
Food irradiation
– the process of exposing food and food packaging to ionizing radiation
can effectively destroy organisms responsible for spoilage and
foodborne illness and inhibit sprouting, extending shelf life.
Food delivery
– An order is typically made either through a restaurant or grocer's
website or mobile app, or through a food ordering company. The ordered
food is typically delivered in boxes or bags to the customer's
doorsteps.
Categories
Technology has innovated these categories from the food industry:
Agricultural technology – or AgTech, it is the use of technology in agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture
with the aim of improving yield, efficiency, and profitability.
Agricultural technology can be products, services or applications
derived from agriculture that improve various input/output processes.
Food Science – technology in this sector focuses on the development of new functional ingredients and alternative Proteins.
Foodservice – technology innovated the way establishments prepare, supply, and serve food outside the home. There's a tendency to create the conditions for the restaurant of the future with robotics and CloudKitchens.
Consumer Tech – technology allows what we call Consumer electronics, which is the equipment of consumers with devices that facilitates the cooking process.
Food delivery – as the food delivery market is growing, companies and startups
are rapidly revolutionizing the communication process between consumers
and food establishments, with Platform-to-Consumer delivery as the
global lead.
Innovation in the food sector may include, for example, new types for raw material processingtechnology, packaging of products, and new food additives. Applying new solutions may reduce or prevent adverse changes caused by microorganisms,
oxidation of food ingredients, and enzymatic and nonenzymatic
reactions. Moreover, healthier and more nutritious food may be delivered
as well as the food may taste
better due to improvements in food composition, including organoleptic
changes, and changes in the perception and pleasures from eating food.
With the global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050,
there is an urgent need for alternative protein sources that are
sustainable, nutritious, and environmentally friendly. Plant-based
proteins are gaining popularity as they require fewer resources and
produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared to animal-based
proteins.
Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have developed
plant-based meat alternatives that mimic the taste and texture of
traditional meat products.
Food Waste Reduction
Approximately one-third of all food produced globally is wasted.
Innovative food tech solutions are being developed to address this
issue. For example, Apeel Sciences has developed an edible coating that
extends the shelf life of fruits and vegetables, reducing spoilage and
waste.
Consumer acceptance
Historically, consumers paid little attention to food technologies. Nowadays, the food production
chain is long and complicated and food technologies are diverse.
Consequently, consumers are uncertain about the determinants of food quality
and find it difficult to understand them. Now, acceptance of food
products very often depends on perceived benefits and risks associated
with food. Popular views of food processing technologies matter.
Especially innovative food processing technologies often are perceived
as risky by consumers.
Acceptance of the different food technologies varies. While
pasteurization is well recognized and accepted, high pressure treatment
and even microwaves often are perceived as risky. Studies by the
Hightech Europe project found that traditional technologies were well
accepted in contrast to innovative technologies.
Consumers form their attitude towards innovative food
technologies through three main mechanisms: First, through knowledge or
beliefs about risks and benefits correlated with the technology; second,
through attitudes based on their own experience; and third, through
application of higher order values and beliefs.
A number of scholars consider the risk-benefit trade-off as one of the main determinants of consumer acceptance, although some researchers place more emphasis on the role of benefit perception (rather than risk) in consumer acceptance.
Rogers (2010) defines five major criteria that explain
differences in the acceptance of new technology by consumers:
complexity, compatibility, relative advantage, trialability and
observability.
Acceptance of innovative technologies can be improved by
providing non-emotional and concise information about these new
technological processes methods. The HighTech project also suggests that
written information has a higher impact on consumers than audio-visual
information.
After World War II,
newly implemented agricultural technologies, including pesticides and
fertilizers as well as new breeds of high yield crops, greatly increased
food production in certain regions of the Global South.
The Green Revolution, or the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields. These changes in agriculture began in developed countries in the early 20th century and spread globally until the late 1980s. In the late 1960s, farmers began incorporating new technologies such as high-yielding varieties of cereals, particularly dwarf wheat and rice, and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers (to produce their high yields, the new seeds require far more fertilizer than traditional varieties), pesticides, and controlled irrigation.
At the same time, newer methods of cultivation, including mechanization, were adopted, often as a package of practices to replace traditional agricultural technology. This was often in conjunction with loans conditional on policy changes being made by the developing nations adopting them, such as privatizing fertilizer manufacture and distribution.
Both the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation were heavily involved in its initial development in Mexico. A key leader was agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution", who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. He is credited with saving over a billion people from starvation. Another important scientific figure was Yuan Longping, whose work on hybrid rice varieties is credited with saving at least as many lives. Similarly, MS Swaminathan is known as the Father of Green Revolution in India.
The basic approach was the development of high-yielding varieties of
cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of
management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers. As crops began to reach the maximum improvement possible through selective breeding, genetic modification technologies were developed to allow for continued efforts.
Studies show that the Green Revolution contributed to widespread
eradication of poverty, averted hunger for millions, raised incomes,
reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced land use for agriculture, and
contributed to declines in infant mortality.
History
Use of the term
The term "Green Revolution" was first used by William S. Gaud, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in a speech on 8 March 1968. He noted the spread of the new technologies as:
These and other developments in the field of agriculture contain the makings of a new revolution. It is not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution.
Mexico has been called the 'birthplace' and 'burial ground' of the Green Revolution.
It began with great promise and it has been argued that "during the
twentieth century two 'revolutions' transformed rural Mexico: the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and the Green Revolution (1940–1970)."
The genesis of the Green Revolution was a lengthy visit in 1940
by U.S. Vice President-elect Henry A. Wallace, who had served as U.S.
Secretary of Agriculture during President Franklin Roosevelt's first two
terms, and before government service, had founded a company, Pioneer Hi-Bred International,
that had revolutionized the hybridization of seed corn to greatly
increase crop yields. He became appalled at the meager corn yields in
Mexico, where 80 percent of the people lived off the land, and a Mexican
farmer had to work as much as 500 hours to produce a single bushel of
corn, about 50 times longer than the typical Iowa farmer planting hybrid
seed.
Wallace persuaded the Rockefeller Foundation to fund an agricultural
station in Mexico to hybridize corn and wheat for arid climates, and to
lead it, he hired a young Iowa agronomist named Norman Borlaug.
The project was supported by the Mexican government under new President Manuel Ávila Camacho, and the U.S. government, the United Nations, and the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO). For the U.S. government, its neighbor Mexico was an important
experimental case in the use of technology and scientific expertise in
agriculture that became the model for international agricultural
development. Mexico sought to transform agricultural productivity, particularly with irrigated rather than dry-land cultivation in its northwest, to solve its problem of lack of food self-sufficiency. In the center and south of Mexico, where large-scale production faced challenges, agricultural production languished.
Increased production promised food self-sufficiency in Mexico to feed
its growing and urbanizing population with the increase in a number of
calories consumed per Mexican. The science of hybridization was seen as a valuable way to feed the poor and would relieve some pressure of the land redistribution process.
In general, the success of "Green Revolution" depended on the use of
machinery for cultivation and harvest, on large-scale agricultural
enterprises with access to credit (often from foreign investors),
government-supported infrastructure projects, and access to low-wage
agricultural workers.
Within eight years of Wallace's visit, Mexico had no need to
import food, for the first time since 1910; within 20 years, corn
production had tripled, and wheat production had increased five-fold.[28]
In 1943, Mexico imported half of its wheat requirements, however by
1956 it had become self-sufficient and it was exporting half a million
tons of wheat by 1964. Within 30 years, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for ultimately saving two billion people from starvation.
Mexico was the recipient of knowledge and technology of the Green
Revolution, and it was an active participant with financial supports
from the government for agriculture and Mexican agronomists. In the
aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, the government had redistributed
land to ejidatarios in some parts of the country which had broken the back of the hacienda system. During the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940), land reform in Mexico reached its apex in the center and south of Mexico. Agricultural productivity had fallen significantly by the 1940s.
After Borlaug's agricultural station was established, in 1941, a
team of U.S. scientists, Richard Bradfield (Cornell University), Paul C. Mangelsdorf (Harvard University), and Elvin Charles Stakman (under whom Borlaug had studied at the University of Minnesota) surveyed Mexican agriculture to recommend policies and practices. In 1943, the Mexican government founded the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), which became a base for international agricultural research.
Agriculture in Mexico had been a sociopolitical issue, a key factor
in some regions' participation in the Mexican Revolution. It was also a
technical issue enabled by a cohort of trained agronomists who advised ejidatarios on how to increase productivity.
In the post-World War II era, the government sought development in
agriculture that bettered technological aspects of agriculture in
regions not dominated by small-scale ejido cultivators. This drive for agricultural transformation brought Mexico self-sufficiency in food, and in the political sphere during the Cold War, helped stem unrest and the appeal of Communism.
The Mexican government created the Mexican Agricultural Program
(MAP) to be the lead organization in raising productivity. Mexico became
the showcase for extending the Green Revolution to other areas of Latin
America and beyond, into Africa and Asia. New breeds of maize, beans,
and wheat produced bumper crops
with additional inputs (such as fertilizer and pesticides) and careful
cultivation. Many Mexican farmers who had been dubious about the
scientists or hostile to them (often a mutual relationship of discord)
came to see the scientific approach to agriculture as worth adopting.
The requirements for the full package of inputs of new strains of
seeds, fertilizer, synthetic pesticides, and water were often not
within the reach of small-scale farmers. The application of pesticides
could be hazardous for farmers. Their use often damaged the local
ecology, contaminating waterways and endangering the health of workers
and newborns.
One of the participants in the Mexican experiment, Edwin J. Wellhausen,
summarized the factors leading to its initial success. These include:
high yield plants without disease resistivity, adaptability, and ability
to use fertilizers; improved use of soils, adequate fertilizers, and
control of weeds and pests; and "a favorable ratio between the cost of
fertilizers (and other investments) to the price of the produce."
In 1960 during the administration of PresidentCarlos P. Garcia the Government of the Republic of the Philippines with the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation established the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). A rice crossing between Dee-Geo-woo-gen and Peta was done at IRRI in 1962. In 1966, one of the breeding lines became a new cultivar: IR8 rice. The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos made the promotion of IR8 the lynchpin of the Masagana 99 program, along with a credit program.
The new variety required the use of fertilizers and pesticides but
produced substantially higher yields than the traditional cultivars.
Annual rice production in the Philippines increased from 3.7 to
7.7 million tons in two decades. The switch to IR8 rice made the Philippines a rice exporter for the first time in the 20th century,
though imports still exceeded exports, according to data from the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. From 1966 to 1986, the
Philippines imported around 2,679,000 metric tons and exported only
632,000 metric tons of milled rice.
By 1980, however, problems with the credit scheme rendered the loans
accessible only to rich landowners while leaving poor farmers in debt. The program was also noted to have become a vehicle of political patronage.
In 1961, Norman Borlaug was invited to India by the adviser to the Indian Minister of Agriculture Dr. M. S. Swaminathan.
Despite bureaucratic hurdles imposed by India's grain monopolies, the
Ford Foundation and Indian government collaborated to import wheat seed
from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). The state of Punjab
was selected by the Indian government to be the first site to try the
new crops because of its reliable water supply, the presence of Indus
plains which make it one of the most fertile plains on earth, and a
history of agricultural success. India began its own Green Revolution
program of plant breeding, irrigation development, and financing of
agrochemicals.
India soon adopted IR8 rice. In 1968, Indian agronomist S.K. De Datta
published his findings that IR8 rice yielded about 5 tons per hectare
with no fertilizer, and almost 10 tons per hectare under optimal
conditions. This was 10 times the yield of traditional rice. IR8 was a success throughout Asia and dubbed the "Miracle Rice". IR8 was also developed into Semi-dwarf IR36.
In the 1960s, rice yields in India were about two tons per
hectare; by the mid-1990s, they had risen to 6 tons per hectare. In the
1970s, rice cost about $550 a ton; in 2001, it cost under $200 a ton.
India became one of the world's most successful rice producers, and is
now a major rice exporter, shipping nearly 4.5 million tons in 2006.
China's large and increasing population meant that increasing food
production, principally rice, was a top priority for the Chinese
government. When the People's Republic of China was established in 1949,
the Chinese Communist Party made it a priority to pursue agricultural
development.
They sought to solve China's food security issues by focusing on
traditional crop production, biological pest control, the implementation
of modern technology and science, creating food reserves for the
population, high-yield seed varieties, multi-cropping, controlled
irrigation, and protecting food security. This began with the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950, which ended private land ownership and gave land back to the peasants.
Unlike with Mexico, the Philippines, India, or Brazil, the beginning of
China's unique Green Revolution were unrelated to the American "Green
Revolution." Rather, it was characterized by the government's
sponsorship of agricultural research in concert with peasant knowledge
and feedback, earlier international research, nature-based pest control
and many other non-industrial agricultural practices, in order to feed
the rapidly growing population.
Prominent in the development of productive hybrid rice was Yuan Longping, whose research hybridized wild strains of rice with existing strains. He has been dubbed "the father of hybrid rice", and was considered a national hero in China.
Chinese rice production met the nation's food security needs, and today
they are a leading exporter of rice. In recent years, however,
extensive use of ground water for irrigation has drawn down aquifers and extensive use of fertilizers has increased greenhouse gas emissions.
China has not expanded the area of cultivable land, China's unique high
yields per hectare gave China the food security it sought.
In 1979, there were 490 million Chinese people living in poverty. In
2014, there were only 82 million. Half of China's population had once
been hungry and in poverty, but by 2014, only 6% remained so.
Brazil's vast inland cerrado region was regarded as unfit for farming before the 1960s because the soil was too acidic and poor in nutrients, according to Norman Borlaug. However, from the 1960s, vast quantities of lime (pulverized chalk or limestone)
were poured on the soil to reduce acidity. The effort went on for
decades; by the late 1990s, between 14 million and 16 million tons of
lime were being spread on Brazilian fields each year. The quantity rose
to 25 million tons in 2003 and 2004, equaling around five tons of lime
per hectare. As a result, Brazil has become the world's second biggest soybean
exporter. Soybeans are also widely used in animal feed, and the large
volume of soy produced in Brazil has contributed to Brazil's rise to
become the biggest exporter of beef and poultry in the world. Several parallels can also be found in Argentina's boom in soybean production as well.
There have been numerous attempts to introduce the successful concepts from the Mexican and Indian projects into Africa.
These programs have generally been less successful. Reasons cited
include widespread corruption, insecurity, a lack of infrastructure, and
a general lack of will on the part of the governments. Yet
environmental factors, such as the availability of water for irrigation,
the high diversity in slope and soil types in one given area are also
reasons why the Green Revolution is not so successful in Africa.
A recent program in western Africa is attempting to introduce a new high yielding 'family' of rice varieties known as "New Rice for Africa"
(NERICA). NERICA varieties yield about 30% more rice under normal
conditions and can double yields with small amounts of fertilizer and
very basic irrigation. However, the program has been beset by problems
getting the rice into the hands of farmers, and to date the only success
has been in Guinea, where it currently accounts for 16% of rice cultivation.
After a famine in 2001 and years of chronic hunger and poverty, in 2005 the small African country of Malawi
launched the "Agricultural Input Subsidy Program" by which vouchers are
given to smallholder farmers to buy subsidized nitrogen fertilizer and
corn seeds.
Within its first year, the program was reported to have had extreme
success, producing the largest corn harvest of the country's history,
enough to feed the country with tons left over. The program has advanced
yearly ever since. Various sources claim that the program has been an
unusual success, hailing it as a "miracle". Malawi experienced a 40% drop in corn production in 2015 and 2016.
A 2021, a randomized control trial on temporary subsidies for corn farmers in Mozambique found that adoption of Green Revolution technology led to increased yields in both the short- and long-term.
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
In 1970, the year that Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize, foundation
officials proposed a worldwide network of agricultural research centers
under a permanent secretariat. This was further supported and developed
by the World Bank; on 19 May 1971, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) was established, co-sponsored by the FAO, IFAD, and UNDP.
CGIAR has added many research centers throughout the world.
CGIAR has responded, at least in part, to criticisms of Green Revolution
methodologies. This began in the 1980s, and mainly was a result of
pressure from donor organizations. Methods like agroecosystem analysis and farming system research have been adopted to gain a more holistic view of agriculture.
Agricultural production and food security
According to a 2012 review in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
of the existing academic literature, the Green Revolution "contributed
to widespread poverty reduction, averted hunger for millions of people,
and avoided the conversion of thousands of hectares of land into
agricultural cultivation."
Technological Developments
The
Green Revolution spread technologies that already existed but had not
been widely implemented outside industrialized nations. Two kinds of
technologies were used in the Green Revolution, on the issues of
cultivation and breeding. The technologies in cultivation are targeted
at providing excellent growing conditions, which include modern irrigation projects, pesticides, and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. The breeding technologies aimed at improving crop varieties developed through science-based methods including hybrids, combining modern genetics with plant-breeding trait selections.
High-yielding varieties
The novel technological development of the Green Revolution was the production of novel wheat cultivars. Agronomists bred high-yielding varieties
of corn, wheat, and rice. HYVs have higher nitrogen-absorbing potential
than other varieties. Since cereals that absorbed extra nitrogen would
typically lodge, or fall over before harvest, semi-dwarfing genes were bred into their genomes. A Japanese dwarf wheat cultivar Norin 10 developed by Japanese agronomist Gonjiro Inazuka, which was sent to Orville Vogel at Washington State University by Cecil Salmon,
was instrumental in developing Green Revolution wheat cultivars. In the
1960s, with a food crisis in Asia, the spread of high-yielding variety
rice greatly increased.
Dr. Norman Borlaug,
the "Father of the Green Revolution", bred rust-resistant cultivars
which have strong and firm stems, preventing them from falling over
under extreme weather at high levels of fertilization. CIMMYT
(Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo – International
Center for Maize and Wheat Improvements) conducted these breeding
programs and helped spread high-yielding varieties in Mexico and
countries in Asia like India and Pakistan. These programs led to the doubling of harvests in these countries.
Plant scientists figured out several parameters related to the
high yield and identified the related genes which control the plant
height and tiller number. With advances in molecular genetics, the mutantgenes responsible for Arabidopsis thaliana genes (GA 20-oxidase, ga1, ga1-3), wheat reduced-height genes (Rht) and a rice semidwarf gene (sd1) were cloned. These were identified as gibberellinbiosynthesis genes or cellular signaling component genes. Stem growth in the mutant background is significantly reduced leading to the dwarfphenotype. Photosynthetic
investment in the stem is reduced dramatically as the shorter plants
are inherently more stable mechanically. Assimilates become redirected
to grain production, amplifying in particular the effect of chemical
fertilizers on commercial yield.
High-yielding varieties significantly outperform traditional
varieties in the presence of adequate irrigation, pesticides, and
fertilizers. In the absence of these inputs, traditional varieties may
outperform high-yielding varieties. Therefore, several authors have
challenged the apparent superiority of high-yielding varieties not only
compared to the traditional varieties alone, but by contrasting the
monocultural system associated with high-yielding varieties with the
polycultural system associated with traditional ones.
By one 2021 estimate, the Green Revolution increased yields by 44% between 1965 and 2010. Cereal production more than doubled in developing nations between the years 1961–1985. Yields of rice, corn, and wheat increased steadily during that period.
The production increases can be attributed equal to irrigation,
fertilizer, and seed development, at least in the case of Asian rice.
While agricultural output increased as a result of the Green
Revolution, the energy input to produce a crop has increased faster, so that the ratio of crops produced to energy input has decreased over time. Green Revolution techniques also heavily rely on agricultural machinery and chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and defoliants; which, as of 2014, are derived from crude oil, making agriculture increasingly reliant on crude oil extraction.
The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation. The development of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer has significantly supported global population growth —
it has been estimated that almost half the people on the Earth are
currently fed as a result of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use.
According to ICIS Fertilizers managing editor Julia Meehan, "People
don't realise that 50% of the world's food relies on fertilisers."
The world population has grown by about five billion
since the beginning of the Green Revolution. India saw annual wheat
production rise from 10 million tons in the 1960s to 73 million in 2006. The average person in the developing world consumes roughly 25% more calories per day now than before the Green Revolution.
Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture
around the globe, world grain production increased by 160%.
The production increases fostered by the Green Revolution are often credited with having helped to avoid widespread famine, and for feeding billions of people.
Food security
World population supported with and without synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.
Malthusian criticism
Some criticisms generally involve some variation of the Malthusian principle of population. Such concerns often revolve around the idea that the Green Revolution is unsustainable, and argue that humanity is now in a state of overpopulation or overshoot with regards to the sustainable carrying capacity and ecological demands
on the Earth. A 2021 study found, contrary to the expectations of the
Malthusian hypothesis, that the Green Revolution led to reduced
population growth, rather than an increase in population growth.
Although many people die each year as a direct or indirect result
of hunger and poor nutrition, Malthus's more extreme predictions have
failed to materialize. In 1798 Thomas Malthus made his prediction of
impending famine. The world's population had doubled by 1923 and doubled again by 1973 without fulfilling Malthus's prediction. Malthusian Paul R. Ehrlich, in his 1968 book The Population Bomb,
said that "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people
by 1980" and "Hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in
spite of any crash programs."
Ehrlich's warnings failed to materialize when India became
self-sustaining in cereal production in 1974 (six years later) as a
result of the introduction of Norman Borlaug's dwarf wheat varieties.
However, Borlaug was well aware of the implications of population
growth. In his Nobel lecture he repeatedly presented improvements in
food production within a sober understanding of the context of
population. "The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's
war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space.
If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for
sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of
human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the
green revolution will be ephemeral only. Most people still fail to
comprehend the magnitude and menace of the "Population Monster"...Since
man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident that within
the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he
steers along the road of irresponsible population growth..."
M. King Hubbert's
prediction of world petroleum production rates (1968 peak of USA, 2005
World conventional oil peak, 2018 all liquides including corn to oil
peak). Modern agriculture is largely reliant on petroleum energy.
Famine
To some modern Western sociologists and writers, increasing food production is not synonymous with increasing food security, and is only part of a larger equation. For example, Harvard professor Amartya Sen wrote that large historic famines were not caused by decreases in food supply, but by socioeconomic dynamics and a failure of public action. Economist Peter Bowbrick
disputes Sen's theory, arguing that Sen relies on inconsistent
arguments and contradicts available information, including sources that
Sen himself cited. Bowbrick further argues that Sen's views coincide with that of the Bengal government at the time of the Bengal famine of 1943, and the policies Sen advocates failed to relieve the famine.
Quality of diet
Some
have challenged the value of the increased food production of Green
Revolution agriculture. These monoculture crops are often used for
export, feed for animals, or conversion into biofuel. According to Emile Frison of Bioversity International,
the Green Revolution has also led to a change in dietary habits, as
fewer people are affected by hunger and die from starvation, but many
are affected by malnutrition such as iron or vitamin-A deficiencies.
Frison further asserts that almost 60% of yearly deaths of children
under age five in developing countries are related to malnutrition.
The strategies developed by the Green Revolution focused on
fending off starvation and were very successful in raising overall
yields of cereal grains, but did not give sufficient relevance to
nutritional quality. High yield cereal crops have low quality proteins, with essential amino acid deficiencies, are high in carbohydrates, and lack balanced essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and other quality factors.
High-yield rice, introduced since 1964 to poverty-ridden Asian countries, such as the Philippines, was found to have inferior flavor and be more glutinous and less savory than their native varieties, causing its price to be lower than the average market value.
In the Philippines the heavy use of pesticides in rice
production, in the early part of the Green Revolution, poisoned and
killed off fish and weedy green vegetables that traditionally coexisted
in rice paddies.
These were nutritious food sources for many poor Filipino farmers prior
to the introduction of pesticides, further impacting the diets of
locals.[100]
Political impact
A critic of the Green Revolution, American journalistMark Dowie
argues that "the primary objective of the program was geopolitical: to
provide food for the populace in undeveloped countries and so bring
social stability and weaken the fomenting of communist insurgency."
Citing internal Foundation documents, Dowie states that the Ford
Foundation had a greater concern than Rockefeller in this area.
Socioeconomic impacts
According to a 2021 study, the Green Revolution substantially increased income.
A delay in the Green Revolution by ten years would have cost 17% of GDP
per capita, whereas if the Green Revolution had never happened, it
could have reduced GDP per capita in the developing world by half.
Environmental impact
Increased use of irrigation played a major role in the green revolution.
Biodiversity
There
are varying opinions about the effect of the Green Revolution on wild
biodiversity. One hypothesis speculates that by increasing production
per unit of land area, agriculture will not need to expand into new,
uncultivated areas to feed a growing human population. However, land degradation and soil nutrients depletion have forced farmers to clear forested areas in order to maintain production.
A counter-hypothesis speculates that biodiversity was sacrificed
because traditional systems of agriculture that were displaced sometimes
incorporated practices to preserve wild biodiversity, and because the
Green Revolution expanded agricultural development into new areas where
it was once unprofitable or too arid.
For example, the development of wheat varieties tolerant to acid soil
conditions with high aluminium content permitted the introduction of
agriculture in the Cerradosemi-humidtropical savanna.
The Green Revolution has been criticized for an agricultural
model which relied on a few staple and market profitable crops, and
pursuing a model which limited the biodiversity of Mexico. One of the
critics against these techniques and the Green Revolution as a whole
was Carl O. Sauer, a geography professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
According to Sauer these techniques of plant breeding would result in
negative effects on the country's resources, and the culture:
A good aggressive bunch of American agronomists and plant breeders
could ruin the native resources for good and all by pushing their
American commercial stocks... And Mexican agriculture cannot be pointed
toward standardization on a few commercial types without upsetting
native economy and culture hopelessly... Unless the Americans understand
that, they'd better keep out of this country entirely. That must be
approached from an appreciation of native economies as being basically
sound.
Greenhouse gas emissions
Studies indicate that the Green Revolution has substantially increased emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2.
High yield agriculture has dramatic effects on the amount of carbon
cycling in the atmosphere. The way in which farms are grown, in tandem
with the seasonal carbon cycling
of various crops, could alter the impact carbon in the atmosphere has
on global warming. Wheat, rice, and soybean crops account for a
significant amount of the increase in carbon in the atmosphere over the
last 50 years.
Poorly regulated applications of nitrogen fertilizer that exceed the amount used by plants, such as broadcast applications of urea, result in emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, and in water pollution. As the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri
summarized in 2022, "food systems emit approximately one third of the
world’s greenhouse gases and contribute to the alarming decline in the
number of animal and plant species. Intensive industrial agriculture and
export-oriented food policies have driven much of this damage. Ever
since governments started adopting the Green Revolution in the 1950s,
the world's food systems have been increasingly designed along
industrial models, the idea being that, if people are able to purchase
industrial inputs, then they can produce a large amount of food.
Productivity was not measured in terms of human and environmental
health, but exclusively in terms of commodity output and economic
growth. This same system disrupted carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus
cycles because it requires farmers to depend on fossil fuel- based
machines and chemical inputs, displacing long-standing regenerative and
integrated farming practices."
The IPCC's synthesis of recent findings states similarly "intensive
agriculture during the second half of the 20th century led to soil degradation and loss of natural resources and contributed to climate change."
They further specify, "while the Green Revolution technologies
substantially increased the yield of few crops and allowed countries to
reduce hunger, they also resulted in inappropriate and excessive use of
agrochemicals, inefficient water use, loss of beneficial biodiversity,
water and soil pollution and significantly reduced crop and varietal
diversity."
Land use
A 2021 study found that the Green Revolution led to a reduction in land used for agriculture.
Health impact
Studies have found that the Green Revolution substantially reduced infant mortality
in the developing world. A 2020 study of 37 developing countries found
that the diffusion of modern crop varieties "reduced infant mortality by
2.4–5.3 percentage points (from a baseline of 18%), with stronger
effects for male infants and among poor households."
Another 2020 study found that high yield crop varieties reduced infant
mortality in India, with particularly large effects for rural children,
boys and low-caste children.
Consumption of pesticides and fertilizer agrochemicals
associated with the Green Revolution may have adverse health impacts.
For example, pesticides may increase the likelihood of cancer. Poor farming practices including non-compliance to usage of masks and over-usage of the chemicals compound this situation.
In 1989, WHO and UNEP estimated that there were around 1 million human
pesticide poisonings annually. Some 20,000 (mostly in developing
countries) ended in death, as a result of poor labeling, loose safety
standards etc.
A 2014 study found that Indian children who were exposed to higher
quantities of fertilizer agrochemicals experienced more adverse health
impacts.
Although the Green Revolution has been able to improve agricultural
output briefly in some regions in the world, its yield rates have been
declining, while its social and environmental costs become more clearly
apparent. As a result, many organizations continue to invent new ways to
rectify, significantly augment or replace the techniques already used
in the Green Revolution. Frequently quoted inventions are the System of Rice Intensification, marker-assisted selection, agroecology, and applying existing technologies to agricultural problems of the developing world.
It is projected that global populations by 2050 will increase by
one-third and as such will require a 70% increase in the production of
food, which can be achieved with the right policies and investments.
Evergreen Revolution
The term 'Evergreen Revolution' was coined by Indian agricultural scientist M. S. Swaminathan
in 1990, though he has stated that the concept dates back to as early
as 1968. It aims to represent an added dimension to the original
concepts and practices of the green revolution, the ecological
dimension. Swaminathan has described it as "productivity in perpetuity without associated ecological harm". The concept has evolved into a combination of science, economics, and sociology. In 2002, American biologist E.O. Wilson observed that:
The problem before us is how to
feed billions of new mouths over the next several decades and save the
rest of life at the same time, without being trapped in a Faustian bargain that threatens freedom and security. No one knows the exact solution to this dilemma. The benefit must come from an Evergreen Revolution.
The aim of this new thrust is to lift food production well above the
level obtained by the Green Revolution of the 1960s, using technology
and regulatory policy more advanced and even safer than those now in
existence.
— E.O. Wilson
However,
despite Swaminathan's prominent role in India's adoption of Green
Revolution agriculture, the 'Evergreen' concept largely reflects the
failures of the original project. Although a relatively lesser known term, its substance largely reflects
the consensus positions outlined in recent IPCC and other synthetic
reports.
