The continuing population growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has contributed to a decline in cultivated area per farming population. Consequently, food insecurity is increasingly becoming a major concern in this continent. To ensure food security, a Green Revolution, which dramatically increases crop yield, must be introduced. But, several major questions are being raised: why did SSA fail to achieve a Green Revolution in the past? What are its future prospects? What should be done to realise a Green Revolution in SSA? This article answers these questions based on an examination of crop yield trends, literature review and the results of our own case studies in SSA.

Buckwheat is an important coarse grain often grown in China’s marginal and dry mountainous areas; however, few empirical studies have quantified the factors that increase land productivity and encourage buckwheat farmers’ market participation. To address this gap in the literature, this study aims to empirically identify the factors associated with the land productivity of buckwheat, those associated with buckwheat farmers’ decisions regarding market participation, and those associated with buckwheat selling prices; unique survey data collected from rural buckwheat farmers in China in 2016 are used for the analysis. Our estimation results showed that fertilizer costs and rental machine costs were negatively associated with buckwheat income, indicating the sub-optimality of buckwheat farming. Farmers are likely to sell their buckwheat at high prices if they conduct the initial processing and sell it to processing firms. Providing technical training on the initial processing and information on market channels for buckwheat farmers could serve as efficacious policy interventions. The household head’s educational attainment was positively associated with buckwheat productivity and market participation, indicating the importance of the effort to narrow the educational gap between urban and rural areas in China.

Crop income can be raised in two ways: one way is to increase crop productivity and the other is to grow high-value crops that could be sold at high prices in the market. This study evaluated the adoption determinants of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and high-value varieties (HVVs) of rice and their associations on crop income using data collected in coastal areas of the Ayeyarwady River delta, which is prone to climate shocks such as saltwater intrusion and cyclones. We used cross-sectional data on 298 rice-producing households and 393 rice plots to conduct multinomial logit estimates, which revealed that the heights of the plots, and past exposure to saltwater intrusion negatively affected the adoption of HVVs. Our estimates also suggest that while the adoption of HYVs is not associated with high rice yield, income, or profit, HVV adoption is associated with high income and profit.