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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
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.
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.
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.
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.