ABSTRACT
It was widely believed in tropical areas of Asia several decades ago that high population pressure on a closed land frontier would result in rural poverty, food shortages, and eventually even widespread famine. Indeed, high population pressure has led to a decline in the size of farmland and an increase in the incidence of landlessness, even though farmland is a major asset in rural households (Estudillo and Otsuka 1999). Yet, food shortages have been avoided by the dramatic increases in grain yields in the 1970s and 1980s due to the Green Revolution. The direct effects of the Green Revolution on rural poverty, however, seem to have been modest. The Green Revolution has had only limited effects on employment opportunities for the poor agricultural landless and near-landless population, even though it has significantly reduced grain prices, thereby increasing the welfare of the poor as consumers (David and Otsuka 1994).
