Green Revolution refers to a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives, occurring between the 1940s and the late 1970s, that increased agriculture production around the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s.

The initiatives, led by Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution" credited with saving over a billion people from starvation, involved the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers.

The term "Green Revolution" was first used in 1968 by former United States Agency for International Development (USAID) director William Gaud, who noted the spread of the new technologies and said,

"These and other developments in the field of agriculture contain the makings of a new revolution. It is not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution."

Raj Patel (born 1972, London) is a British-born American academic, journalist, activist and writer who has lived and worked in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the United States for extended periods. He is best known for his 2008 book, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. His most recent book is The Value of Nothing which was on The New York Times best-seller list during February 2010. He has been referred to as "the rock star of social justice writing." He has contributed to spread the philosophy of sharing.

Born to a mother from Kenya and a father from Fiji, he grew up in Golders Green in north-west London where his family ran a corner shop. Patel received a B.A in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), from Oxford, and a Masters Degree from the London School of Economics, and gained his PhD in Development Sociology from Cornell University in 2002. He has been a visiting scholar at Yale and the University of California, Berkeley. As part of his academic training, Patel worked at the World Bank, World Trade Organization and the United Nations. He has since become an outspoken public critic of all of these organizations, and claims to have been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against his former employers.

Richard Manning is an award-winning environmental author and journalist, with particular interest in the history and future of the American prairie, agriculture and poverty. He writes frequently about trauma and poverty for the National Native Children's Trauma Center based at the University of Montana, where he is a senior research associate. (www.goodworksintrauma.org) He is the author of eight books, and his articles have been published in Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Audubon and The Bloomsbury Review.

Manning worked as a journalist, reporter and editor for more than 30 years, including four years at the Missoulian. In 1995 he was the recipient of a John S. Knight Fellowship from Stanford University. He is a three-time winner of the Seattle Times C.B. Blethen Award for Investigative Journalism, and has also won the Audubon Society Journalism Award and the inaugural Richard J. Margolis Award in 1992.

He lives in Missoula, Montana with his wife, Tracy Stone-Manning.