It took almost 1,000 years for wheat yields to increase from 0.5 to 2 metric tons per hectare. In contrast, from 1940 to 1980 the yield for wheat increased from 2 metric tons to over 6 metric tons per hectare. These are big numbers, and they had a big effect on developing countries where large parts of the population were able to surplus food for the first time. Still, critics have argued that most of the benefits went to large, land-owning farmers and that the rural poor saw little benefit from the advances. This paper examines questions about the Green Revolution, as these agricultural advances have come to be called, and how they did and didn’t benefit the world’s poor.