Introduction
The development of modern crop varieties for developing countries began in a concerted fashion in the late 1950s. Food prices rose after World War 2 due to rapidly increasing population and the reduced availability of land in many countries. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations coordinated wheat and rice breeding schemes. They key break-through was the development of short, fertilizer-responsive rice and wheat varieties. These varieties were resistant to disease and insects and were used as model plant types for breeders to adapt to local conditions. The first users of the wheat and rice varieties were in India, Malaysia and Pakistan in 1965 (Evenson, 2003). They produced spectacular increases in yield and their success was characterized as the "Green Revolution".
Effects of the Green Revolution
The Green Revolution helped to reduce widespread poverty, averting hunger for millions of people. However the Green Revolution also spurred its share of negative consequences, often not because of the technology itself but rather, because of the policies that were used to promote rapid intensification of agricultural systems and increase food supplies. According to Pingali (2012) Africa was the main exception to the success of the Green Revolution in the developing world. During the Green Revolution, the demand for intensification in Africa was quite low because land was relatively abundant. Farmers had little incentive to intensify land use because there was no incentive to save on land costs. In the 1960s and 1970s, national and international programs sought to short cut the varietal improvement process in sub-Saharan Africa by introducing unsuitable crop varieties from Asia and Latin America. This pattern remained until the 1980s, when more suitable varieties finally became available, based on research specifically targeted to