Indian Agriculture and Green Revolution — A Well-Thought Experiment or a Glorified Error?
By the time India gained independence, quite a large chunk of its cultivable land was under the commercial crops. India inherited a backward economic system from the British. Agriculture contributed 53.1% of GDP, employing 73% of the workforce (15–59 years) with 80–85% of population dependent on it. However due to the low productivity of agriculture, food security was absent in India. Industries sector contributed only 17% of GDP but it was mostly concentrated in consumer goods. The year 1921 was the year of demographic divide when population growth showed an actual spike from previous years. This was largely owed to the medical interventions brought by the British which ultimately led in a sharp rise in birth rate and an equally steep downfall in death rates. Also, at this time, due to the German blockade of Mediterranean in World War I, steel was not supplied to India, hence a natural promotion to the industries followed. This trend continued through the independence, up until 1960s, the decade of population explosion, when an acute shortage of food grains loomed large. This was also somewhat compounded by the collective inefficiency of the first three Five-Year plans, coinciding with the Nehruvian era.
The First Five-Year Plan (1951–56) did focus on development of primary sector. There was an equal weightage given to agriculture as well as the industries. This plan, largely based on Harrod-Domar model of defining a country’s growth in terms of savings and productivity of capital, surpassed all expectations and targets, which were albeit low in the first place. The achieved domestic product was 3.6%, against a targeted GDP of 2.1%. National income increased more than the per capita income due to rapid population growth. The World Health Organization (WHO), with the Indian government, addressed children’s health and reduced infant mortality, indirectly contributing to population growth. But an overall holistic growth in agriculture was still missing. The Second Five-Year Plan (1956–61), also referred to as the Mahalanobis Model, shifted its entire focus towards mechanisation and capital industries, ignoring agriculture by and large in the process. This was also the period of rising prices, and the country also faced a huge foreign exchange crisis due to food grains being imported. Agriculture met its target, but only barely. By the time the third Five-Year Plan (1961–66) kicked in, the country was grappling with a disastrous scarcity of food grains. The Sino-Indian conflict of 1962, the India-Pakistan war of 1965, and the drought of 1965–66 piled up the misery and immense pressure on the underdeveloped agricultural machinery of the country. This was the time when the then-Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi travelled to the United States and managed to convince the US President Lyndon Johnson to provide India with food aid. Under the PL-480 program, US started exporting food grains to India. But this did not come alone. The operating conditions of this trade were appalling, as the food grains used to feed pigs in the US were exported along with a deliberate mixing with weeds. This was done allegedly by the US due to its close diplomatic ties with India’s arch-enemy Pakistan which acted as a strategic geo-political base to spy on USSR. Having suffered an unsurmountable humiliation and famine, India thus decided to become self-sufficient in minimum possible time.
In 1962, one of the greatest science books of all time, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, documented the adverse impact on environment by excessive use of pesticides, specifically DDT. This triggered a worldwide countermovement sponsored by Norman Borlaug, the father of global Green Revolution, who professed that environment could not be discussed with a hungry man. This paved the way for Green Revolution in India, along with many other countries, with the following expedited objectives –
(i) Solving the problem of hunger
(ii) Shifting the focus back to the food crops
(iii) Developing the backward and forward linkages
(iv) Gaining self-sufficiency in food grain population
(v) Modernization of agriculture, which included use of machines, high yielding seeds, chemical fertilizers and electricity.
A strategy of ‘deliberate imbalance’ was adopted, under which certain areas which were already somewhat developed and capable were chosen, because they could give results in shorter time period and less investment, and with time, benefits could trickle down to other areas. Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Cauvery Basin were chosen, while fertile lands of Bengal, Bihar, and Northeast Orissa were ignored despite a better rainfall regime.
Thus, basis the data, Northern India became an automatic choice for the Green Revolution. It is very true to say that post Green Revolution, there was a dramatic increase recorded in overall agricultural growth trends. This allowed India to solve the problem of food scarcity instantaneously.
But while evaluating the impact of Green Revolution, we assess that the picture is not as rosy as numbers paint it to be. There was an overall spike in food grain production, rice, wheat, and development of forward and backward linkages such as fertilizer consumption, irrigation facilities, and machine use. A number of RRBs (Regional Rural Banks) also came up that provided cheap and easy credit to the farmers. Yet, Green Revolution had a detrimental impact on several other facets of food security. Although production of rice and wheat went up, it was at the cost of pulses, oilseeds, and millets. So, while we have enough of food grains in the country, problems of malnutrition and hunger still prevail. This also led to the practice of monoculture which is one of the major agricultural problems in India. The areas which were bypassed during the Green Revolution are still the most under-developed agricultural regions of the country. Regional disparity also saw a rise afterwards. Over-use of chemicals has severely contaminated the groundwater and has impacted the health of soil, plants and animals in food chain.
Soil salinization is also one of the worst after-effects of Green Revolution. Punjab and Haryana productivity has declined, as overuse of chemicals like urea has rendered the soil powdery and dry. At the same time, what compounded the problem was the fact that the Government announced the system of minimum floor price and procurement for the first time during 1970s. While the regions of coastal Andhra Pradesh were chosen for the production of rice, due to MFP provisions, the farmers of Punjab and Haryana also started cultivating rice. This resulted in an alarming depletion of groundwater table. To put things into perspective, a Central Groundwater Board report in 2016 stated that by 2023, 66% of area in Punjab would have the groundwater table below 70 ft. The average height by which groundwater goes down across Indian territory is 30 cm/year, while in Punjab it is close to 70–110 cm/year. This has resulted in an increase in salinity of groundwater in these areas since evapo-transpiration losses are significant. Saline water in the sub-soil starts evaporating in these arid and semi-arid regions, leaving the salt behind. So summarily, while Green Revolution has definitely resulted in a stupendous growth in volume of food grains produced, the comprehensive definition of growth — sustainable, inclusive, environment-friendly, integrated — has been largely under-achieved.
Apart from environment, it is critical to analyse that Green Revolution largely focused on wheat and rice. This reduced the production of pulses, millets, and oilseeds. This, while providing India with food security, was supposed to be a makeshift arrangement. But having been over-practised far longer than intended, this has brought along malnutrition, undernutrition, and no crop rotation. This calls for an urgent need for an Evergreen Rainbow Revolution — Yellow — Pulses, White — Milk, Blue — Fisheries, Silver — Eggs, Pink — Poultry, Red — Tomatoes, Golden — Jute. Evergreen Revolution is not a governmental initiative, rather it is largely an idea which envelopes several programmes. There is an imminent threat to Indian healthcare, predominantly stemming from lack of essential nutrients in diet. Along with this, a sustained focus on eastern Indian regions is also needed, since they were never focused upon, and are reeling under fragmented land holdings and obsolete hardware. Yet another phase of land-reforms is also indispensable right now. While the first phase concentrated upon abolition of zamindari, ownership rights, and land ceiling; the spotlight should now shift on qualitative aspects such as fertility of land, de-desertification of land, and de-salinization of land.
At this point, if India were to look ahead at reaping residual benefits out of the thrust provided by Green Revolution, a more holistic approach is the need of the hour. The focus should shift from Green Revolution to Evergreen Revolution. The agrarian emergency gripping the nation underlines the requirement for taking care of the issues of farmers and cultivating with a similar earnestness as we did in the mid-sixties. As indicated by most gauges, farming is no longer a profitable recourse, and more than 40 percent of farmers would exit in the event that they have a better earning alternative. Agriculture is both a lifestyle and the chief way of business to about 66% of people in our country. Obviously, we won’t have the option to gain ground in improving our per capita income or human development indicators, if agriculture keeps on stagnating. The Green Revolution of 1970s did achieve its targets, and overhauled them in places, but it could not sustain the positive impact in the light of the extreme measures taken at that time to achieve food security. Through Malthusian lens, it can be inferred that it was the only way out in that hour of crises, population explosion and regional conflicts, but now that India is self-sufficient, technologically advanced, and has the means to percolate the positive effects of policies to the grassroots level, this is the reason why Government in recent times has been calling out for a second agricultural revolution. The issues at hand are largely different from what there were during 1960s, as currently we are tussling with soil contamination, environmental hazards, and lack of groundwater preservation. A NITI Aayog report[6] states that by 2030, 21 cities in India would run out of groundwater. Hence, it is of paramount importance that we adopt a sustainable policy to propel our agriculture while conserving environment.
