A revolution of this magnitude was bound to create some problems of its own. Critics
charged that the Green Revolution resulted in environmental degradation and increased
income inequality, inequitable asset distribution and increase in absolute poverty. Some
of these criticisms are valid and have been or still need to be addressed. But there is a
tendency today to overstate the problems and to ignore the appropriate counter-factual
situation: what would have been the magnitude of hunger and poverty without the yield
increases of the Green Revolution and with the same population growth?2