The Green Revolution, or the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields. These changes in agriculture began in developed countries in the early 20th century and spread globally until the late 1980s. In the late 1960s, farmers began incorporating new technologies such as high-yielding varieties of cereals, particularly dwarf wheat and rice, and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and controlled irrigation.
After World War II, newly implemented agricultural technologies, including pesticides and fertilizers as well as new breeds of high yield crops, greatly increased food production in certain regions of the Global South.
Increased use of irrigation played a major role in the green revolution.
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus Triticum ; the most widely grown is common wheat. The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BC. Botanically, the wheat kernel is a caryopsis, a type of fruit.
Wheat
A: Plant; B ripe ear of corn; 1 spikelet before flowering; 2 the same, flowering and spread, enlarged; 3 flowers with glumes; 4 stamens 5 pollen; 6 and 7 ovaries with juice scales; 8 and 9 parts of the scar; 10 fruit husks; 11, 12, 13 seeds, natural size and enlarged; 14 the same cut up, enlarged.
Sickles with stone microblades were used to harvest wheat in the Neolithic period, c. 8500–4000 BC
Sumerian cylinder seal impression dating to c. 3200 BC showing an ensi and his acolyte feeding a sacred herd wheat stalks; Ninurta was an agricultural deity and, in a poem known as the "Sumerian Georgica", he offers detailed advice on farming