[3] There has been a recent resurgence of Green Revolution ideas, especially with the large-scale support of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and high-yield-variety agriculture.

In 1987, the organization received the Right Livelihood Award "for revealing the political and economic causes of world hunger and how citizens can help to remedy them.

The institute was founded by Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins, and actually began in New York in Lappe's basement before relocating to San Francisco, and then later to Oakland where it is still located.

The organization's president is Joyce E. King, whose work in sociology has focused on "women's participation in grass roots social change movements in Africa, South America and France".

Food First supports a "bottom-up" approach to solving world hunger, asserting the ability of all countries to feed their own people if they focus on agriculture for subsistence rather than for export.