Chapter 1

The Yield in the Context of Industrial Versus Sustainable Agriculture

Stefano Bocchi

Abstract

During the Green Revolution both the yield and the global production significantly increased. The yield increase was achieved, for some main crops, thanks to the so called high yielding varieties. Higher global production was also due to the increase of the crop production surface which took place especially in some areas of the planet. In the current scenario of rapid human population increase, with a sharp increase of livestock, the challenge is to achieve efficient, productive, sustainable and resilient land use, while conserving biodiversity and assuring, everywhere, food security inside a framework of sustainable diets. The paper, after a discussion on the meanings of such concepts as yield, yield gap, production and global production describes some of the main issues related to increased intensification of food security and global productivity in the current discussions on the potential of the Green Revolution approach and the agro-ecological paradigm.

Total Pages: 1-16 (16)

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