Trade-Offs in Agriculture and Nutrition

Presumably since the dawn of agriculture, humans have measured their farming success mainly by the size of their crops. Many environmental and genetic methods can increase crop yields, including irrigation, fertilization, weed and pest control, choice of cultivated variety, and selective breeding. These methods applied to grains culminated in the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s and ’70s, greatly increasing yields of wheat, rice, and maize.

Unfortunately, in recent decades we have learned that inc…