How to Improve the Social Benefits of AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

摘要

Famines have killed tens of millions of people across the centuries. But as the global population rose from 2.5 billion people in 1950 to nearly eight billion today, mortality from famine was radically curtailed. What accounted for this remarkable accomplishment? Perhaps the most commonly cited factor is the Green Revolution, typically summarized, as in this online encyclopedia entry, as the "great increase in production of food grains (especially wheat and rice) that resulted in large part from the introduction into developing countries of new, high-yielding varieties, beginning in the mid-20th century."