When did the green revolution start?

W: What is the Green Revolution?
M: It started in the 1940s when I joined a new program, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, aimed at assisting poor farmers in Mexico to increase their wheat production. We spent nearly 20 years breeding high-yield dwarf wheat that resisted a variety of plant pests and diseases and yielded two to three times more grain than traditional varieties.
    Eventually, in the 1960s, we were able to expand the program and teach local farmers in Pakistan and India to cultivate the new wheat properly. The results were wonderful.
    In 1968, when the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S.AID) wrote in his annual report that there was a big improvement in Pakistan and India, he said, "It looks like a Green Revolution". That is how the label "The Green Revolution" got started. As an aside, the "greenies" have nothing to do with the Green Revolution, which is all about alleviating world hunger.
    In the 1980s, the success of the Green Revolution spilled over to China, which is now the world’s biggest food producer.
W: Is global hunger still a threat as it was in the 1960s?
M: Yes, it is. For example, Africa now has a food crisis in a number of countries. That is what our African program is trying to solve—and former President Jimmy Carter is involved in it. Our joint program is called Sasakawa-Global 2000. We’re helping farmers in countries struggling with food shortages to help them with the best possible farming practices, such as choosing seed and controlling weeds. We have the technology to double or triple food production but there is no viable system of transportation in these countries—no roads, no railroads: The cost of moving fertilizer to these places, for example, would be three to four times more than what American farmers currently pay. Even if African farmers could produce more grain, how do they get it to their cities?