“A bloodless social revolution”: Land reform and multiple cropping in Cold War Taiwan, 1950–1979

Abstract

Societal Impact StatementMultiple cropping, the cultivation of several crops on the same land in a year, occupied an important part of Taiwan's agricultural research from 1950 to 1970. This research originated in the context of Taiwan's land reform and diversification programs and their connections to the government's political ambition to maximize food production. The study of how multiple cropping was politicized and depoliticized by different actors helps to expand the narratives of the Green Revolution in Asia, analyze their legacies, and highlight Taiwan's role in the international exchange of visions of agricultural development during the Cold War.Summary Scholars have recently expanded the history of the Green Revolution to move beyond the narrative of North–South technological diffusion. This article enriches the scholarship with the case of multiple cropping in Taiwan and its connection to Cold War geopolitics. Rice productivity in postwar Taiwan was boosted through a land reform launched by the Sino‐American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR) in the 1950s. Backed by American aid and staffed by scientists from the Republic of China (ROC) government, the JCRR envisioned to turn tenant farmers into landowners so as to encourage labor input and adoption of seeds and fertilizers. By 1960, the JCRR presented its reform as a “bloodless social revolution” and extended its focus to multiple cropping through a diversification program. The JCRR further created the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC) in 1971 to spread Taiwan's breeding and cropping techniques. The ROC's diplomatic isolation in the 1970s, however, prompted the center to reinterpret Taiwan's success in multiple cropping from a political achievement to a technological triumph, thus reinforcing the technology‐driven narrative used by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Through Taiwan's influences on IRRI's rice breeding and multiple cropping research, this paper illustrates that the history of the Green Revolution requires more complex narratives. In addition, with Taiwan's political and economic transition since the 1980s, farmers began to reclaim their voice and influence agricultural policies. The case thus highlights the need of democratic participation in agricultural research, a concern that remains relevant today.