Attitudes towards the green revolution have altered over time. Initial analysis focused on issues associated with the adoption or not of modern varieties, it being suggested that failure to benefit from modern varieties was due to ignorance of smaller farmers. Later analysis suggests that high-yielding varieties were incompatible with prevailing socio-economic conditions and were only suitable under a specific set of favourable conditions. The problem was not the technology itself, which was highly successful when applied efficiently, but that it often did not meet the needs and circumstances of farmers. The problem seems to have been the centralized nature of the research institutes involved in development and diffusion of the technology, which did not allow feedback from farmers. This would have been crucial for solving basic problems facing farmers, particularly small farmers in poor regions. Better understanding of the issues derived from the green revolution has led to a growing emphasis on agriculture as a complex dynamic system.
2. The greatest beneficiaries of the green revolution may be the consumers. Real food prices in Asia, indeed throughout the world, have steadily declined over the past 30 years through the application of yield-increasing, cost-reducing technologies built around improved seed-fertilizer-weed control components. Lower real food prices benefit the poor relatively more than the rich, since the poor spend a larger proportion of their available income on food.