Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
First green revolution
(developed countries)
Second green revolution
(developing countries)
Major international agricultural
research centers and seed banks
Figure 10-5
Global outlook:
countries whose crop yields per unit of land area increased during the two green
revolutions. The first (blue) took place in developed countries between 1950 and 1970; the second (green) has
occurred since 1967 in developing countries with enough rainfall or irrigation capacity. Several agricultural re-
search centers and gene or seed banks (red dots) play a key role in developing high-yield crop varieties.
Figure 10-6
Solutions:
high-yield, semidwarf
variety of rice called
IR-8 (left), developed
as part of the second
green revolution. Cross-
breeding two parent
strains of rice produced
it: PETA from Indonesia
(center) and DGWG
from China (right). The
shorter and stiffer stalks
of the new variety allow
the plants to support
larger heads of grain
without toppling over
and increase the benefit
from applying more
fertilizer.
