South Asia is one of the world's most populated regions. The country of India alone has almost 900 Million inhabitants. Feeding the region's people has always been a great challenge. It is remarkable, therefore, that India has today become a net expoter of grain. That a country of such size produces as much grain as it does is significant proof of the great advances made in agricultural technology.

The great increase in crop yields of the 1960s and 1970s known as the green revolution is at the heart of India's, and many other countries, success. During the green revolution, scientists developed new, more productive strains of rice, corn, and wheat. These new crop strains were better suited to the climates, as well as the farming and economic conditons, of developing areas,

In the 1980s and early 1990s, scientists made another important breakthrough in agricultural technology. It to promised to...