The main criteria used to assess the positive and negative impacts (including risks associated with technologies) of AKST were:

• Social sustainability-effects on livelihoods, nutrition and health, empowerment, equity (beneficiaries-including landless and labor), gender, access.
• Environmental sustainability-effects on natural capital, agroecosystem function, climate change.
• Economic sustainability-poverty, trade and markets, national and international development.

Levels of certainty were attributed to impact and sustainability statements based on evidence found in the international literature and the expert judgment of the authors. This certainty was associated with the range of impacts reported and to the appropriate measures of scale and specificity (Table 3-1).

3.2 Assessment and Analysis of AKST Impacts

In this subchapter we present Impact Statements (in bold), analyzed and quantified as explained above (Table 3-1).

3.2.1 Agriculture productivity, production factors and consumption

Since the mid-20th Century, there have been two relatively independent pathways to agricultural development. The first, which has dominated formal AKST, was initiated globally and has involved public-sector agricultural research coordinated by the International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs) of the CGIAR.

3.2.1.1 Food production, consumption, and human welfare

The improvement of farm productivity was the major outcome of the Green Revolution, especially in the early years, Large benefits from resulted from the application of AKST in crop and livestock breeding, improved husbandry, increased use of fertilizers, pesticides and mechanization. However, these benefits were accompanied by some environmental issues.

Modern agricultural science and technology has positively affected a large number of people worldwide.

Despite large increases in population (see Chapter 1), agricultural systems have provided sufficient food resources to reduce undernourishment rates by about 50% in Asia/ Pacific and Latin American/Caribbean since 1970. Large increases in agricultural production of vegetables, roots and tubers, cereals, fruits and pulses, have been made possible through genetic improvement, soil fertility management, irrigation, pesticides and mechanization (Salokhe et al., 2002; Figure 3-1). On a global scale, AKST has increased per capita production of calories, fats/oils, proteins and micronutrients (Evenson and Gollin, 2003ab). For example, available caloric availability increased from 2360 kcal/ person/day in the mid-1960s to 2803 kcal person-1 day-1 in the 1997-1999 (Bruinsma, 2003). At present, 61% of the world's population consume >2700 kcal per day. Prices for staple foods have also declined (Bruinsma, 2003), benefiting many poor since they spend a large portion of their income on food. However, AKST benefits have been unevenly realized among and within regions and some estimates suggest that around a third of humanity has not been affected by modern agricultural science.

Agricultural science and technology has had positive impacts on the productivity (yield per unit area) of staple food crops, but these gains have not been universally realized.

     The cereal staples maize, rice, and wheat contribute around 60% of the caloric energy for humans on the global scale (Cassman et al., 2003). Among industrialized countries and in the developing regions of Asia and Latin and Central America (LAC), average cereal yields have sustained annual rates of increase (43 to 62 kg ha-1 yr-1), and have more than