Agricultural experts have suggested that fruit trees replace grain on the terraced Himalayan hillsides, but it is far from obvious that fruit would yield poor farmers a better return.

ECONOMIST: From the archive

For example, the Amazon pupunha-a is a fruit that can yield twice as much starch as Iowa corn, and the Amazonian babassu palm gives the world's highest yield of vegetable oil.

ECONOMIST: Growth and geography

Older, higher quality vines yield less fruit, but the fruit commands a better price.

FORBES: Self-Employment

It keeps the grapes' natural acidity from respiring out before the grape fully ripens, which means that rich, mature fruit doesn't yield flabby, jamlike wine.

FORBES: Making a Case for South America

It usually takes four years for vines to yield usable fruit.

FORBES: Self-Employment

Robotics: Six presenting firms offer robotic and software systems to maximize yield and productivity including Energid Technologies that has developed a robotic citrus harvesting system that automatically finds and removes fruit at a lower cost than manual harvesting, and Vision Robotics that will use stereo vision-based robots to pick, prune and other tasks on specialty crops.

FORBES: Drought, Food Shortage Cast Spotlight on Ag Innovation Showcase