Although the green revolution era (from the late 1960s onwards) was arguably an important one in South Asia’s progress toward food security, the exact drivers of these trajectories of food production remain contested by scholars across many disciplinary spectra (Stone, 2019). The relative role of new crop varieties vis-a-vis public investments in irrigation and fertilizer subsidies have spawned a large body of literature (Stone, 2019). Moreover, the widely reported unintended consequences suggest that fundamental institutional and systems innovations are needed beyond the promise of genetic, mechanical, and chemical technologies to foster truly sustainable agri-food systems (Pingali, 2012, 2022; Barrett, 2021). For example, the challenges of scaling “on-shelf ” technologies suggest gaps to be filled in modernizing agricultural extension and rural advisory services. The lack of finance, information, and markets remain intractable impediments to sustainable intensification. Therefore, a broader and balanced range of both the “hardware” (technological progress) and the “software” (institutional and systems innovations) are indispensable for the sustainable transformation of agri-food system systems.