In this thesis, I investigate three topics associated with the technological revolution in agriculture that occurred as a result of the dissemination of modern, scientifically bred crop varieties across the developing world during the Green Revolution and in the decades that followed it. In my first paper, presented in Chapter 2, I use a cross-country database to analyze under what conditions the international diffusion of modern crop varieties during the Green Revolution led developing country yields to converge towards the yield frontier, and the role played by factors such as developing country R&D investments and regulatory capacity. In my second paper (Chapter 3), I focus on a single country, Uganda, to identify the extent to which different seed certification systems can successfully act as a signal of quality in a market characterized by quality heterogeneity and substantial information asymmetry. Finally, in my third paper (Chapter 4), I present the results of an experiment designed to elicit how farmers in Côte d'Ivoire value having access to heritage African rice landrace varieties conserved by the Rice Biodiversity Center for Africa. Taken as a whole, this body of work contains lessons regarding the challenges and successes of agricultural technology diffusion in the past, and also provides insights of value for the coming years, as agriculture globally will have to become both more productive and resilient in the face of climate change and a growing world population.