Explain the impact of green revolution on food security
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Answer:
Impact on Productivity and Food Prices.
The rapid increase in agricultural output resulting from the GR came from an impressive increase in yields per hectare. Between 1960 and 2000, yields for all developing countries rose 208% for wheat, 109% for rice, 157% for maize, 78% for potatoes, and 36% for cassava (18). Developing countries in southeast Asia and India were the first countries to show the impact of the GR varieties on rice yields, with China and other Asian regions experiencing stronger yield growth in the subsequent decades (19). Similar yield trends were observed for wheat and maize in Asia (20). Analysis of agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) finds similar trends to the partial productivity trends captured by yield per hectare [TFP is defined as the ratio of total output to total inputs in a production process (20)] (21). For the period 1970–1989, change in global TFP for agriculture was 0.87%, which nearly doubled to 1.56% from 1990 to 2006 (21).
Crop genetic improvement focused mostly on producing high-yielding varieties (HYVs), but the decrease in time to maturity was also an important improvement for many crops, allowing for an increase in cropping intensity. The rapid spread of the rice–wheat system in the Indo-Gangetic plains (from Pakistan to Bangladesh) can be attributed to the shortening of the crop growing period (22). Other improved inputs, including fertilizer, irrigation, and to a certain extent, pesticides, were also critical components of the GR intervention. Asia had already invested significantly in irrigation infrastructure at the start of the GR and continued to do so throughout the GR and post-GR periods (2).
Widespread adoption of GR technologies led to a significant shift in the food supply function, contributing to a fall in real food prices (23, 24). Between 1960 and 1990, food supply in developing countries increased 12–13% (25). Estimates suggest that, without the CGIAR and national program crop germplasm improvement efforts, food production in developing countries would have been almost 20% lower (requiring another 20–25 million hectares of land under cultivation worldwide) (26, 27). World food and feed prices would have been 35–65% higher, and average caloric availability would have declined by 11–13% (28). Overall, these efforts benefited virtually all consumers in the world and the poor relatively more so, because they spend a greater share of their income on food (29).
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