Over the past half a century developing regions, with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa, have seen labor-saving technologies adopted at unprecedented levels. Intensification of production systems created power bottlenecks around the land preparation, harvesting and threshing operations....

Considering the deep pessimism about the limits to growth that prevailed throughout much of the 60s and early 70s, the rapid growth in food crop productivity and food supplies triggered by the Green Revolution was a remarkable achievement. The driving force behind this success was the...