- Green Revolution in India
The introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds after 1965 and the increased use of
fertilizers andirrigation are known collectively as theGreen Revolution , which provided the increase in production needed to makeIndia self-sufficient in food grains, thus improvingagriculture in India .Famine in India , once accepted as inevitable, has not returned since the introduction of Green Revolution crops.Initiation
The program was started with the help of the
United States -basedRockefeller Foundation and was based on high-yielding varieties ofwheat ,rice , and other grains that had been developed inMexico and in thePhilippines . Of the high-yielding seeds, wheat produced the best results. Production of coarse grains- the staple diet of the poor and pulses the main source ofprotein - lagged behind, resulting in reduced per capita availability.Before the Green Revolution
The total area under the high-yielding-varieties program was a negligible 1.9 million hectares in FY 1960. Since then growth has been spectacular, increasing to nearly 15.4 million hectares by FY 1970, 43.1 million hectares by FY 1980, and 63.9 million hectares by FY 1990. The rate of growth decreased significantly in the late 1980s.
Results
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. Food-grain yields continued to increase throughout the 1980s, but the dramatic changes in the years between 1965 and 1980 were not duplicated. By FY 1980, almost 75 percent of the total cropped area under wheat was sown with high-yielding varieties. For rice the comparable figure was 45 percent. In the 1980s, the area under high-yielding varieties continued to increase, but the rate of growth overall was slower. The eighth plan aimed at making high-yielding varieties available to the whole country and developing more productive strains of other crops.
The Green Revolution created wide regional and interstate disparities. The plan was implemented only in areas with assured supplies of water and the means to control it, large inputs of fertilizers, and adequate farm credit. These inputs were easily available in at least parts of the states of Punjab,
Haryana , and westernUttar Pradesh ; thus, yields increased most in these states. In other states, such asAndhra Pradesh andTamil Nadu , in areas where these inputs were not assured, the results were limited or negligible, leading to considerable variation in crop yields within these states. The Green Revolution also increased income disparities: higher income growth and reduced incidence of poverty were found in the states where yields increased the most and lower income growth and little change in the incidence of poverty in other states.References
*cite web|url=http://countrystudies.us/india/104.htm|title=The Green Revolutionin India|work=U.S. Library of Congress (released in
public domain )|title=Library of Congress Country Studies|accessdate=2007-10-06ee also
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Agriculture in India
*Operation Flood
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