From the early 1960's countries struggling with the challenge of maintaining their levels of food production against population growth embraced emergent technologies, technologies manufactured, for the most part, in developed countries from 1943 onwards.

The result? Swelling yields of basic food stuffs. Wheat yields, for example, grew from below 500kg per hectare to just under 3,000kg per hectare. In 1968 William Gaud, the former USAID director, termed this transformation in agriculture the 'Green Revolution.'

Since the 1970's governmental investment for research into infrastructure and new technologies declined sharply. The over production in developed countries, which was also partly the result of unwise subsidies for domestic farmers, resulted in Europe's infamous 'grain mountains.' Whilst the EU has used vast percentages of its budget to subsidize its own farmers (61% of the entire EU budget was given over to the Common Agricultural Policy in 1992), research into increasing productivity has faltered. The World Bank cut their development assistance to 3% in 2004, down from a high of 18% in 1979.

Unfortunately, whilst the world rested on the Loral's of the first Green Revolution world population has continued to grow rapidly. To add to that basic level of food demand is the fact that countries such as China have experienced shifts in population demographic, namely a burgeoning middle class able to consume more meat and milk. Biofuels have also decreased supply in the face of increasing demand, making up a third of this years North American corn crop.

The momentum behind the original Green Revolution is now seen by many global leaders as having stalled. The global food shortage, which is at its most precarious in developing countries, is providing the immediate impetuous for a second revolution. The most appealed to source for increasing yields is in the field of Genetic Modification. Around 8% of the world's arable land is now planted with some form of modified crop, and the technology is supported by the US and Brazil, who claim that the avenues of technological advancement opened up during the first revolution have now been exhausted, and yields unable to rise further through those means. Crops that are able to resist drought and plagues pose an obvious attraction to agriculture in developing countries, though the technology is controlled for the most part by a handful of wolfish companies. Then, of course, there are the ethical objections.

The original Green Revolution took for granted the availability of water in areas where the resource is now incredibly scarce due to overpopulation or climate change. It is hoped that by developing and finding the finance for implementing new methods of irrigation productivity in these areas could once again keep pace with population growth and demand.

Then there is oil. Oil is a major problem because the first Green Revolution was determined upon the availability of cheap energy, for both manufacturing fertilizers and pesticides and as a fuel in itself. The soaring cost of black gold has caused a knock on effect right through the supply chain. With oil unlikely to get cheaper anytime soon, the resolution of this problem will be interesting to observe.

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