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applied in Asia with wheat and rice, which also led to im­pressive yield increases. This strategy was institutionalized in the 1960s with the establishment of the international and tropical research centers and with their union, the CGIAR, in the 1970s (see 4.5.1). While some of the research cen­ters were commodity oriented, since the 1970s most have concentrated on farming systems and often promoted input intensive farming schemes (Van Keulen, 2008). The strategy was to concentrate inputs and services on a few major crops (like wheat, rice and corn) on the best arable lands and for the better-off farmers, to reduce food scarcity and to estab­lish markets for farm inputs. Overall the Green Revolution is credited with saving over a billion people from starvation (Buhler et al., 2002; Evenson and Collins, 2003). Initially there were high hopes in translating the Green Revolution to Africa, but these attempts failed, possibly due to challenging socio-ecological conditions and because farmer's goals are different than those in Asia (Conway, 1997).
     After the initial enthusiasm about the successes of the Green Revolution a whole catalogue of criticisms emerged from the late 1960s onwards. Social concerns included that the practices introduced were often not appropriate or ac­cessible for small-scale farmers, that there was little R&D of the staple crops of the most food insecure and that the reliance on external inputs led to indebtedness of a pro­portion of the farmers. Environmental concerns pointed to that the building of big dams required for the new ir­rigation schemes resulted often in flooding of farmland, excessive use of chemical inputs leading to water pollu­tion,  soil degradation due to agricultural intensification and more extensive use of non-renewable energy sources. Mixed cropping was replaced with monocultures of single varieties and landraces of crops were lost. Other means of yield improvement tended to be ignored by farmers and crops grown for subsistence gave way to the production of cash crops (Van Keulen, 2008; Falcon and Naylor, 2005; Buttel, 2005).
     Subsequently approaches that emphasized the multidi­mensional effects of technologies aiming to reduce negative social and/or environmental consequences while increas­ing positive impacts became more common in the 1970s and 1980s (Mann, 1997). Examples of such approaches are Integrated Pest Management (IPM), on-farm conserva­tion, farming systems research (FSR), farmer-oriented ap­proaches and participatory research, sustainable agriculture and integrated rural development (see 4.4.1). CGIAR, in collaboration with national research centers and universi­ties, was extensively involved in IPM programs and habitat management strategies for parasitic weed and pest control (Cook et al., 2007). FSR approaches, which relate to the whole farm rather than individual elements and take into account traditional farming expertise, household goals and constraints  (Stephens  and Hess,   1999),  rapidly  became popular and supported by many donor agencies (Brown et al., 1988). As the limitations of the FSR approach became apparent, the agroecosystem analysis (AEA) approach was promoted. It broadened the perspective to take into account the long term health of the wider ecosystem (Stephens and Hess, 1999). The new approach of the Doubly Green Revo­lution (introduced by Conway in 1997) aims at sustainable use of resources and/or adaptive management in agriculture

 

(Pretty, 1995; Conway, 1997; von Braun, 2000; Ashley and Maxwell, 2001).
     In recent decades, accelerated by the end of the Cold War, agricultural trade has been increasingly liberalized. De­veloping countries, in which the agricultural sector occupied a large share of the economy and employment, sought to switch from self-sufficient agriculture to commercial agri­culture. One side effect of this strategy was an increase in the number of poor people and in the gap between rich and poor. Small farmers increasingly started contract production under large farm owners. In some cases farmers lost their land, being unable to pay off credits used to finance exter­nal inputs, turning into tenant farmers or farm laborers. In the face of reduced development aid, programs and policies were outlined for poverty reduction and remedies for poor areas to reduce the regional disparities (Van Keulen, 2008). Developing countries have also responded to the increase in demand for food produced without chemical inputs, ex­porting organic produce to serve NAE markets, a develop­ment of interest to poor and remote farmers. In recent years, the use of genetic engineering techniques to accelerate plant breeding has resulted in some successes. The introduction of insect resistant Bt cotton in China has been reported to improve yields and yield security as well as reducing insec­ticide use and cases of pesticide poisoning in farmers (Pray et al., 2002). The transgenic techniques have also raised a lot of criticism due to inequity in terms of access and feared environmental and health risks.
     Global insecurity, civil conflicts and lack of democracy have continued to be major problems causing food insecu­rity (e.g., Falcon and Naylor, 2005). During the 1990s, 1 million lives were lost annually in civil wars. The combined number of annual hunger-related deaths was 8 million peo­ple, of which 60% occurred in Africa and 25% in Asia (UN, 2004; Hunger Project, 2005). Global food supply problems for several major commodities were largely solved, but the problem of access to food was not conquered (e.g., Lappeé and Collins, 1988; Falcon and Naylor, 2005).

4.3.3 Paradigms in NAE AKST in recent decades
Negative side effects of an AKST approach focused solely on increasing the food sufficiency and farm productivity became gradually more apparent and raised concern about the externalities of agricultural technologies, in particular in terms of environment and health (e.g., effects of DDT and eutrophication). The energy crisis in the 1970s, publica­tion of the Global 2000 report (Barney, 1981) and the Cher­nobyl accident in the 1980s raised concern about resource limitations. These various concerns gave rise to the concept of sustainable development, a concept brought to the fore by the Brundtland report (WCED, 1987). Declines in bio­diversity and climate change also received increasing atten­tion. The biodiversity issue in particular raised discussions in Europe about the multifunctionality and sustainability of agriculture, emphasizing the role of diverse cultural land­scapes and the role of biodiversity in maintaining ecosystem functions. It led to the adoption of an ecosystem approach in World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 for conserving biodiversity (Plan of Implementation, 44e) (UN, 2002).
     One example of an ecosystem approach is organic food