ABSTRACT
Over the last 30 years, the creation and exploitation of new genetic potentials of cereal crops, leading to what is called the Green Revolution, has saved hundreds of millions of people around the world from extreme hunger and malnutrition, and tens of millions from starvation. However, these technologies for improving crop yields have not been maintaining their momentum. The rate of yield increase for cereals worldwide – around 2.4 per cent in the 1970s and 2 per cent in the 1980s – was only about 1 per cent in the 1990s. Although the global food production system has performed well in recent decades, will further support of conventional agricultural research and extension programmes increase yields sufficiently to meet anticipated demand?
