Green Revolution in India

This article is part of a series on the

History of Modern India

Pre-Independence

British Raj (18581947)

Independence movement (18571947)

Partition of India (1947)

Post-Independence

Political integration (194749)

States Reorganisation Act (1956)

Non-Aligned Movement (1956 )

Green Revolution (1970s)

INTRODUCTION :The Introduction of High-yielding varieties of seeds and the increased use of fertilizers and

irrigation are known collectively as the Green Revolution, which provided the increase in production needed to make India selfsufficient in food grains, thus improving agriculture in India. Genetically modified high-yielding wheat was first introduced to India in 1963 by Dr. Norman Borlaug. Borlaug has been hailed as the Father of the Green Revolution. The methods adopted included the use of high yielding varieties(HYV) of seeds. The production of wheat has produced the best results in fueling self-sufficiency of India. Along with high yielding seeds and irrigation facilities, the enthusiasm of farmers mobilized the idea of agricultural revolution and is also credited to M. S. Swaminathan and his team had contributed towards the success of green revolution. Due to the rise in use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers there were many negative effects on the soil and the land such as land degradation. The following measures were adopted:

Use of high yielding varieties (HYV) of seeds Irrigation Use of insecticides and pesticides Consolidation of holdings Land reforms Rural electrification Improved rural infrastructure Supply of agricultural credit Use of (chemical) fertilizers Opening of agriculture universities

The needs of Green Revolution are as follows. 1. Low Irrigation Facility: The well irrigated and permanent irrigated area was only 17% in 1951. The major part of area was dependent on rainfall and, consequently, agriculture suffered from low level of production. 2. Conventional and Traditional Approach: The use of conventional inputs and absence of modern techniques further hampered the agricultural productivity. 3. Frequent Occurrence of Famines: Famines in India were very frequent during the period 1940s to 1970s. Further, due to higher growth rate of populations, agriculture failed to grow at the same speed. 4. Lack of Finance (credit): Small and marginal farmers found it very difficult to get finance and credit at cheap rate from the government and banks ,hence, fell an easy prey to the money lenders. 5. Self-sufficiency: Due to the traditional agricultural practices, low productivity, and to feed growing population, often food grains were imported that drained away scarce foreign reserves. It was thought that with the increased production due to Green Revolution, government can maintain buffer stock and India can achieve self-sufficiency and self-reliable. 6. Marketising Agriculture: Agriculture was basically for subsistence and, therefore, less amount of agricultural product was offered for sale in the market. Hence, the need was felt to encourage the farmers to increase their production and offer a greater portion of their products for sale in the market.

CAUSES

: Term "Green Revolution" is applied to the period from 1967 to 1978. Between 1947 and 1967, efforts at

achieving food self-sufficiency were not entirely successful. Efforts until 1967 largely concentrated on expanding the farming areas. But starvation deaths were still being reported in the newspapers. In a perfect case of Malthusian economics, population was growing at a much faster rate than food production. This called for drastic action to increase yield. The action came in the form of the Green Revolution.

The term "Green Revolution" is a general one that is applied to successful agricultural experiments in many Third World countries. It is NOT specific to India. But it was most successful in India. There were three basic elements in the method of the Green Revolution: (1) Continued expansion of farming areas; (2) Double-cropping existing farmland; (3) Using seeds with improved genetics. Continued expansion of farming areas Double-cropping existing farmland Using seeds with superior genetics

The Green Revolution resulted in a record grain output of 131 million tons in 1978-79. This established India as one of the world's biggest agricultural producers. No other country in the world which attempted the Green Revolution recorded such level of success. India also became an exporter of food grains around that time.

Crop areas under high-yield varieties needed more water, more fertilizer, more pesticides, fungicides and certain other chemicals. This spurred the growth of the local manufacturing sector. Such industrial growth created new jobs and contributed to the country's GDP. The Green Revolution created plenty of jobs not only for agricultural workers but also industrial workers by the creation of lateral facilities such as factories and hydro-electric POWER STATIONS.

India transformed itself from a starving nation to an exporter of food. This earned admiration for India in the comity of nations, especially in the Third World. However, in today's globalised economic scenario, 100 per cent self-sufficiency is not considered as vital a target as it was when the world political climate was more dangerous due to the Cold War. 3) Nothing like the Bengal Famine can happen in India again. But it is disturbing to note that even today, there are places like Kalahandi (in India's eastern state of Orissa) where famine-like conditions have been existing for many years and where some starvation deaths have also been reported. Of course, this is due to reasons other than availability of food in India, but the very fact that some people are still starving in India (whatever the reason may be), brings into question whether the Green Revolution has failed in its overall social objectives though it has been a resounding success in terms of agricultural production.

Harmful Effects of the Green Revolution

The Green Revolution was a result of scientific research that discovered ways to produce high-yield crops, including plant breeding, improved agronomy and the production of fertilizers and pesticides. The revolution helped increase food production in industrialized countries and decreased starvation rates. However, the Green Revolution created

its own set of problems and negative impacts for the farmers, land, regions and economies affected by the growth. ,..

ADVANTAGES OF GREEN REVOLUTION

One advantage of 'the Green Revolution' is that it decreased the amount of human labour. Another advantage is thst paddy rice increased by 91% along with sugar cane up 41% and income by 20%. Therefore the introduction of 'The Green Revolution', which was the transformation in agriculture, introduced during the 1960's and 1970's, provided better management for the yields and pesticides and high-yield grain. It is responsible for the advancement of agriculture.

It is responsible for the advancement of agriculture.

DISADVANTAGES OF GREEN REVOLUTION

Poor farmers could not afford HYV seed Some borrowed and ended up with large debts HYV seeds need more water and fertilizer, which is expensive and unaffordable by the poor farmers. New machinery replaced manual labour leading to unemployment and rural-urban migration and made people to work at low wages.

Moreover, the fertility of the soil was lost due to the increased use of chemical fertilizers. The developed methods of modern irrigation drilled out the water table below the ground. Thus, leading to depletion of underground water table.

IMPACT ON GREEN REVOLUTION

The experience of the Green Revolution in Punjab is anexample how science takes credit for successes and frees itself from all responsibility for failures. It offers technological fixes for social and political problems, but detaches itselffrom the new social and political problems it creates. It is an illustration of how modren scientific project is politically and socially created and how it builds its immunity and obstructs its social assessment. The Green Revolution was based on the assumption that technoloty is a betteralternative for nature's limitss. However the assumption of nature as a source of shortage, and technolgy as a source of plenty, leads to the creation of new technologies which create new scarcities in nature through ecological destruction. The reduction in availability of fertile land and loss of diversity of crops as a resuld=t of Green Revolution, illustrates that at the ecolotical level, the Green Revolution Produced scarcity, not abundance. It not only led to ecological insecurity but also social and political insecurity. It is deceptive to reduce the roots of the Punjab crisis to religion, since the conflits are also rooted in the ecological, economic and political impacts of the Green Revolution. The communalization of the Problem, which basically arose from the policical transformation linked with the Green Revolution was based, in part, on externalizing the political

impacts of technological change from the domain of science and technology. The Green Revolution has many impacts which have drewn intense praise and equally intense criticism ---- 1. Social, Economic and political impact of GreenRevolution 2. Ecological impact of Green Revolution 1. Social, Economic and political impact of GreenRevolution Inspite of the fact that the Green Revolution brought initial monetary benefits to many farmers, especially the rich ones, those benefits were closely related to the high subsidies and price support. These kind of subsidies could not moved further indefinitely and farmers in Punjab are now facing increasing indebtedness. There is in fact an evidence of a decline in the real income per hectare of farmers since 1978. The increased utilization of capital for purchasing inputs has produced new inequalities between those farmers who could use the new technolgy profitably, and those for whom it turned into an instrument of dispossession. Petty farmers, who make up nearly 50% of the farming community, have been particularly badly hit. A study conducted between 1976 and 1978 pointed out that small farmers' households were running into an average deficit of about 1500 rupeens. In the period between 1970 and 1980 , the number of small holding in the Punjab decreased by nearly a quarter due to their economic no-feasibility

EFFECTS OF GREEN REVOLUTION

The social implications of the Green Revolution on groundwater are just as widespread as its environmental consequences. As more and more water is pumped out of the ground, the remaining water is left in fewer and fewer hands. Water-sharing agreements in India have led to conflict over control and its quality (Singh 2000). Scientists seems to feel that the best answer to these problems is to dig more wells and canals, yet the peasants are striking back, In the Punjab, farmers are actively campaigning to halt the construction of the Sutles-Yamuna Link Canal, which will take water to Haryana to irrigate 300,000 hectares for Green Revolution agriculture, whilst in Haryana, local politicians are lobbying hard for its completion. In 1986, irate farmers in the Ropar district of the Punjab, where the Link Canal begins, virtually forced the Irrigation Department to abandon work on the project. In May 1988, 30 laborers were killed at one of the construction sites" (Singh 2000).

Ground water is just one issue of many surrounding the Green Revolution, yet with all the findings and observations done on it in the last half century, many people still see it as the answer to world hunger. The first Green Revolution skipped over Africa where world hunger is at its present greatest. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in conjunction with the Rockefeller Foundation believe that the best way to help Africa get out of hunger is a second Green Revolution. Through all our research we firmly believe that this is not the answer, and we must find well researched, planned, and ecologically sustainable ways of producing and distributing food.

CONCLUSION :

As a technological innovation, the Green Revolution replaced "one way of life with another within a short

span of two decades."The example of Punjab shows that this speedy transformation from subsistence to commercialized agriculture has had enormous cultural, social, economic and ecological effects. It provides a striking case history of the ambivalence of technology and its unforeseen consequences, parallel to the "Future Shock" resulting from the information revolution experienced by Western industry. The lessons learned from it should enable policy makers to reduce the adverse effects of the coming Biorevolution based on genetic engineering. The study provides an excellent example of the

contextual nature of deterministic

influences.

"This alternative view of the introduction of technological change in agriculture as a guiding orientation is that technology is only one part
of an integrated agricultural structure. The limits of caste and class, landholding institutions, political power structure and social relations, farmers differential access to information and credit, rural labour relations, location and market conditions, and government farm price support and input subsidies all interact to influence, and in many respects control, the ease and effectiveness of new technology and the distribution among producers of the benefits from it." Perhaps Norman Borlaug who started it all should have the last word. In the first press conference he gave after his Nobel Peace Prize was announced he said that the work of his institute, and any similar work "would only win us all perhaps twenty years breathing space. The potential resources of food were limited. Unless the growth of population could be controlled, then we should destroy the species.