One major area of uncertainty has been the impact of agricultural intensification on land use (11, 36). Studies in different situations have come to contrasting conclusions on the extent to which intensification can lead to “land-sparing” (37, 38). Several studies have shown that it is difficult to make simple generalizable statements about the land-sparing role of agricultural intensifi- cation and that effects are highly context specific (39, 40). Analysis of the land-saving claims made for the Asian green revolution shows that some land was spared—although not as much as earlier authors had claimed because higher food prices would have occurred without the green revolution and price increases would have resulted in reduced global food demand (38). It is clear that negative impacts of higher food prices on poverty and hunger under this scenario would likely have dwarfed the welfare effects of agricultural expansion. This ex-post analysis of the impacts of green revolution crops reveals the complex web of interacting drivers of change that combined to transform Asian landscapes (36, 38). More food was produced and some natural habitats were spared. However, it also emerges that parallel changes in policies, infrastructure, markets, and other dimensions of the agricultural landscape made significant contributions to these changes. This work highlights the need for improved understanding and models that fully capture the interacting economic, political, social, and biophysical contexts of agricultural innovation within the IAR4D framework (31, 32).