Selective plant breeding produced high yielding varieties of rice and other crops, particularly maize, sorghum, and wheat. Rice is a particular success story, and as the leading cereal crop, helps to pull the world yield rates upwards. Soybean production also has climbed dramatically overall, and stayed somewhat ahead of population growth. Note that Asia did better than the world average, while Africa did worse. From the perspectives of feeding a growing population, the Green Revolution was a smashing success.
Agriculture makes heavy use of fresh water.
High dependency on technology. Towards Improved Agriculture Continued improvements in agricultural practices and land management, hopefully will allow us to both increase yields and minimize some of the negative effects of agriculture. While it is difficult to estimate the gains in food production that we may obtain from exploring new crop species, this could make a large contribution. Ninety percent of the world's food is derived from just 15 plant and 8 animal species. Cereal grains are humankind's major food, contributing more than two-thirds of the world production of edible dry matter and half of the world's protein.