The term ‘Green Revolution’ is a general one that is applied to successful agricultural experiments in

many developing countries. With the experience of agricultural development started

in Mexico by Norman Borlaug in 1943 judged as a success, the Rockefeller Foundation sought to spread
it to other nations. India is one of the countries where it was most successful. Green Revolution is the
significant increase in agricultural productivity resulting from the introduction of high-yield varieties of
grains, the use of pesticides, and improved management techniques. It was a technology package
comprising material components of improved high yielding varieties of two staple cereals (rice and
wheat), irrigation or controlled water supply and improved moisture utilization, fertilizers, and
pesticides, and associated management skills.

Historically, world's worst recorded food disaster occurred

in 1943 in British-ruled India. Known as the Bengal Famine,
an estimated 4 million people died of hunger that year in
eastern India (which included today's Bangladesh).
Initially, this catastrophe was attributed to an acute
shortfall in food production in the area. When the British
left India in 1947; India continued to be haunted by memories
of the Bengal Famine.

It was therefore natural that food security was one of the main items on free India's agenda. This
awareness led, on one hand, to the Green Revolution in India and, on the other, legislative measures to
ensure that businessmen would never again be able to hoard food for reasons of profit.

The Green Revolution, spreading over the period from1967/68 to 1977/78, changed India’s status from a
food-deficient country to one of the world's leading agricultural nations. The major benefits of the Green
Revolution were experienced mainly in northern and northwestern India between 1965 and the early
1980s; the program resulted in a substantial increase in the production of food grains, mainly wheat and
rice. Until 1967 the government largely concentrated on expanding the farming areas. But the population
was growing at a much faster rate than food production. This called for an immediate and drastic action
to increase yield. The action came in the form of the Green Revolution.

There were three basic elements in the method of the Green Revolution

Continuing expansion of farming areas

Double-cropping in the existing farmland
Using seeds with improved genetics.
The area of land under cultivation was being increased from 1947 itself. But this was not enough to meet
the rising demand. Though other methods were required, the expansion of cultivable land also had to
continue. So, the Green Revolution continued with this quantitative expansion of farmlands.

Double cropping was a primary feature of the Green Revolution. Instead of one crop season per year, the
decision was made to have two crop seasons per year. The one-season-per-year practice was based on
the fact that there is only one rainy season annually. Water for the second phase now came from huge
irrigation projects. Dams were built and other simple irrigation techniques were also adopted.

Using seeds with superior genetics was the scientific aspect of the Green Revolution. The Indian
Council for Agricultural Research (which was established by the British in 1929) was reorganized in
1965 and then again in 1973. It developed new strains of high yield variety seeds, mainly wheat and rice
and also millet and corn.
Technologies

The Green Revolution spread technologies that had already existed before, but had not been widely used
outside industrialized nations. These technologies included use of pesticides,
synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and improved crop varieties developed through the conventional, science-
based methods available at the time.

ADVANTAGES

In Indian context, some of the negative and positive impact of Green revolution can be enlisted as
follows:
Positives:
1 - Increase in Production / yield.

2 - Advantage to farmers including their economic situation improving, control on many insects and
pests, mechanizing improved working conditions.

3- Better land use by employing two and three crop pattern.

4 - Better scientific methods applied as per requirement of farms.

5- New seeds developed with better yield and disease fighting capability.
Paddy rice increased by 91% along with sugar cane up 41% and income of farmers by 20% after Green
Revolution. Another advantage of 'the Green Revolution' is that it decreased the amount of human
labour. Cereal production more than doubled in developing nations between the years 1961–1985.Yields
of rice, maize, and wheat increased steadily during that period. The production increases can be
attributed roughly equally to irrigation, fertilizer, and seed development, at least in the case of Asian
rice. The Green Revolution also created plenty of jobs not only for agricultural workers but also
industrial workers by the creation of related facilities such as factories and hydroelectric power stations

DISADVANTAGES OF GREEN REVOLUTION

Some of the major disadvantages of Green Revolution observed till now are:

1- Degradation of land: Due to change in land use pattern and employing two and three crop
rotation every year land quality has gone down and yield has suffered. Also, due to heavy
chemical fertilizer inputs land has become hard and carbon material has gone down.

2- Weeds increase: Due to heavy crop rotation pattern, lands do not get resting time nor the
farmers employ proper weed removal system, thus, there is increased weeds.

3- Pest infestation gone up: Pests which could be controlled by bio degradable methods have
become resistant to many pesticides and now these chemical pesticides have become non
effective.

4- Loss of bio diversity: Due to heavy use of chemical pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers
many birds and friendly insects have been lost and this is a big loss in long term.

5- Chemicals in water: Chemicals used in farms go down and contaminate ground water which
affects public health.

6: Water table has gone down: Water table has gone down due to lack of water harvesting
systems and now there is need sometimes to pull water from 300 to 400 ft. depth which was 40
to 50 feet earlier.
 7: Loss of old seeds: We have started using new seeds and lost old once since new once give
better yield but due to this we have lost many important greens in these seeds.

Some other disadvantages are:

• 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.
• The consumption of the chemicals and pesticides used to kill pests by humans in some
cases may be increasing the likelihood of cancer in some of the rural villages using them.

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.

While agricultural output increased as a result of the Green Revolution, the energy input to produce
a crop has increased faster, so that the ratio of crops produced to energy input has decreased over
time.

A NEED FOR SECOND GREEN REVOLUTION

India’s agriculture has been in decline in recent years and growing at a far slower pace than the overall
economy. In 2006, it was forced to import grain for the first time in years, ringing alarm bells about food
security. Some two-thirds of its population still live off agriculture, which grows about 3% a year. That
is less than half the 8% economic expansion forecast by the government for the financial year to March
2009.
India needs a second Green Revolution to boost food supplies, or its 1.1 billion people will face huge
social turmoil, the country’s top farm scientist has warned.
The government has identified agriculture as a key area for economic reform and called for changes to
boost output of staples such as wheat, rice, pulses and vegetables and bring down food prices for public
interest.
We have to take lessons from mistakes of Green Revolution and move forward to give the Nation a
Second Green Revolution for the development of our country’s economy taking due care of our
environment.

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