"Patents and Pesticides in the Ongoing Green Revolution"

The Green Revolution, which historians have typically located in the mid-20th century, effected sustained shifts in the scale, organization, and geographic scope of modern agriculture. A panoply of biotechnologies and chemical compounds bolstered these transformations, including novel crop varieties, nitrogenous fertilizers, and synthetic organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticides. Although its classic case studies concern Latin America and Southeast Asia during the middle decades of the 20th century, the breadth of the Green Revolution was substantially wider — both temporally and geographically. Accordingly, this paper approaches the Green Revolution as a continuous, global phenomenon, which persists into the 21st century and exists in tension with recent approaches to chemical governance. In particular, it examines the gradual eclipse of 2,4-D-based herbicides by glyphosate, an organophosphorus compound whose global production increased significantly after Monsanto’s last remaining patent expired in 2000. Taking an expanded view of the Green Revolution highlights the emergence of new networks of production and distribution, notably between Chinese chemical conglomerates and East African agricultural consumers. It also illuminates the key influence of intellectual property claims on the geographic spread of chemical technologies and, by extension, of chemical harms.