Tag: Green revolution

For millennia, all food was, by default, organic, produced using natural ecological processes and techniques like crop rotation. The query of when did food stop being organic is not about a single event but a gradual, technological shift that gained momentum in the 20th century, forever altering our food systems.

In the 1960s, a new strain of rice was developed that would dramatically alter the course of food production and help feed millions, becoming famously known as "miracle rice". This was the high-yielding IR8, created by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.

The term "Miracle rice" can refer to two very different rice varieties, one a low-calorie food product and the other a historical high-yielding grain that helped combat famine. The answer to the question, 'Which rice is known as Miracle rice?' depends on whether you are interested in a modern dietary substitute or a monumental achievement in agricultural history.

Before the Green Revolution, millets constituted over 40% of India's total grain production; today, that figure is less than 10%. A range of complex factors beyond a simple lack of awareness explain why don't people eat millet, moving it from a staple grain to a niche product in many parts of the world.

Following the Green Revolution in the 1960s, millet's share of food grain production in some regions dropped significantly, a dramatic shift that begs the question: **Why did we stop eating millet?**. Once a staple food for thousands of years, millets were largely displaced by other cereals due to a combination of agricultural, cultural, and political factors.