Agricultural development since 1947 and the Green Revolution

Detail

1. Agriculture before 1947

• Subsistence farming was the main type. It means farmers grew food mainly for their own family, with little left over to sell.
• Farm output was very poor. Droughts and famines came again and again.

• The Bengal Famine of 1943 is the best-known example.

• Partition (1947) hurt agriculture badly:

• About one-third of the irrigated land of undivided India went to Pakistan. This was mostly the canal-fed land of West Punjab.
• Much of the jute land went to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and much of the cotton land went to West Pakistan.
• Result: India kept the jute mills (around Kolkata) and the cotton mills, but lost a large share of the land that grew their raw material. It also lost some of its best food-growing land.

2. First strategy after independence (late 1940s–1950s)

The goal was to grow more food. There were three parts:

Strand	What it meant
Crop switch	Grow food crops instead of cash crops (crops grown for sale, such as jute and cotton)
Intensification	Grow more crops each year on land that was already farmed (raise the cropping intensity)
Extension	Bring cultivable waste land and fallow land (land left unsown for a time) under the plough

• Output rose at first. Then it stagnated (stopped growing) in the late 1950s.

3. Package programmes of the 1960s

• Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP, 1960-61): this gave chosen districts a full "package" of farm help at the same time:
• credit (farm loans)
• better seeds
• fertiliser
• extension (government workers who teach farmers new methods in their fields)

• The idea was that inputs work best when they arrive together, in districts that already have good water and soil.

• Intensive Agricultural Area Programme (IAAP, 1964-65): this took the same method to more areas.

• The 1965 and 1966 droughts: two failed monsoons in a row caused a serious food shortage.
• India had to import food grains, mainly under PL-480. This was a US food-aid law (Public Law 480, the "Food for Peace" programme) that let India buy American wheat with rupees.
• Depending on imports showed that India had to become self-reliant in food.

4. High-yielding varieties (HYVs)

• HYVs are crop varieties bred to give much more grain per hectare than traditional seeds. They give this extra grain only when they get enough water and fertiliser.

Crop	Origin country	Institution	Key person / variety
Dwarf wheat	Mexico	CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center)	Norman Borlaug
Rice	Philippines	IRRI (International Rice Research Institute, Los Baños)	IR-8 ("miracle rice")

• Both were available in India by the mid-1960s.
• Why dwarf plants? A short, strong stem holds a heavy head of grain without falling over (lodging). So the plant can take heavy fertiliser doses and turn them into grain instead of extra stem.
• What HYVs need:
• assured irrigation (water must reach the field at the right time every time, not just when it rains)

• heavy chemical fertiliser

• Weakness: HYVs are highly susceptible to pests (insects and diseases attack them easily).

• Farmers sprayed more pesticide to protect the crop, so pesticide use rose sharply.

5. The Green Revolution (from the mid-1960s)

• Green Revolution means the sudden, large rise in food-grain output, mostly wheat at first. It came from using a package of HYV seeds + chemical fertilisers + irrigation, and farm machinery (tractors, threshers, tube-wells) later on.
• Where it was first used: the irrigated areas of:
• Punjab
• Haryana
• Western Uttar Pradesh
• Andhra Pradesh (the irrigated delta lands)

• Gujarat

• Architect in India: M.S. Swaminathan, the agricultural scientist who worked with Borlaug to bring HYVs to Indian fields. He was given the Bharat Ratna in 2024.

• Gains:
• India became self-reliant in food grains and no longer needed PL-480 imports.
• It boosted agro-input industries (fertiliser, pesticide, seed, tractor and pump-set makers).

• It boosted agro-processing industries (flour mills, rice mills, food processing).

• Fertiliser use: it has risen about 15 times since the mid-1960s (NCERT).

Why the gains were uneven

• Cause: HYVs need assured irrigation, so only areas with canals or tube-wells could use them.
• Process: the package went first to irrigated north-west India and mostly to wheat. Rainfed areas and crops such as pulses, millets and rainfed rice were left out.
• Result: regional disparities (gaps between regions) widened. Punjab and Haryana moved far ahead of eastern and central India.
• Correction: after the 1970s, the technology slowly spread to eastern and central India and to rice.

6. Later phases

Period	Focus
1980s	Rainfed areas, i.e. farms that depend only on rain (dryland farming, watersheds)
1988	Agro-climatic planning: plans made by agro-climatic region, i.e. zones with similar soil, rainfall and temperature, so that each zone grows what suits it
1980s–1990s	Diversification into dairy, poultry, horticulture, livestock rearing and aquaculture (fish farming). The milk drive was the White Revolution (Operation Flood)
1990s	Liberalisation: markets and trade were opened up, which exposed Indian farming to global prices and competition

7. Present-day output (2024-25)

• Total food grains: a record 357.73 million tonnes in 2024-25, up from 251.54 million tonnes in 2015-16 [2].
• Rice: 150.18 million tonnes (2024-25), up from 137.83 million tonnes in 2023-24 [2].
• Wheat: 117.94 million tonnes (2024-25), almost all of it from the rabi season [2].
• Nutri/coarse cereals (Shree Anna): 63.92 million tonnes, of which maize was 43.41 million tonnes (2024-25) [2].
• Pulses: 25.68 million tonnes (2024-25) [2].
• Oilseeds: 42.99 million tonnes (2024-25) [2].
• This shows the long-term result of the Green Revolution path: India is now a food-surplus country in rice and wheat. Pulses and oilseeds still lag behind.

8. Costs and limits of the Green Revolution

• Soil impoverishment: soils grow poorer.
• Wheat and rice are grown on the same land year after year, with heavy chemical fertiliser.
• Organic matter and micronutrients get used up.

• Yields stop rising even when more fertiliser is added.

• Groundwater depletion: the water table keeps falling.

• Cause: tube-wells irrigate water-hungry paddy in a semi-arid state.
• Process: farmers pump out more water each year than the rain puts back.
• Result: the water table drops year after year.
• Punjab, Dynamic Ground Water Resources Assessment 2024 (GWRA-2024):
  • Yearly recharge (water that soaks back into the ground): 19.19 bcm (billion cubic metres) [3].
  • Extractable resource (water that can be safely taken out): 17.63 bcm [3].
  • Actual extraction: 27.66 bcm. This is a stage of extraction of 156.87% [3].
• Over-exploited means more than 100% of the extractable water is being drawn out. The other classes are Critical (above 90% up to 100%), Semi-critical (above 70% up to 90%) and Safe (70% or less) [3].

• 115 of Punjab's 153 assessment units (75.16%) are over-exploited. Only 22 (14.38%) are safe (GWRA-2024) [3].

• Agrochemical contamination: fertilisers and pesticides seep into soil and groundwater.

• Punjab groundwater samples (2024): nitrate was above 45 mg/L in 12.58%, uranium above 30 ppb in 32.6% and arsenic above 10 ppb in 4.85% of samples [3].

• Health damage: cancer clusters have been reported in Punjab's Malwa region (south of the Sutlej: Bathinda, Mansa, Faridkot and nearby districts). A night train from Bathinda to Bikaner, which carries patients to a cancer hospital, is called the "cancer train".

• Harm to pollinators: pesticides kill bees and other insects that farm crops need.
• Sustainability questions: can this high-input model keep going when soils are tired, water is running out and costs keep rising?
• For the economy subject: procurement and MSP, input subsidies, the Second Green Revolution and BGREI (Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India).

Prelims Hooks

• HYV origins: dwarf wheat from Mexico (CIMMYT, Norman Borlaug); rice IR-8 from the Philippines (IRRI). A common trap swaps the two countries.
• IADP began in 1960-61, before the HYV seeds arrived. IAAP followed in 1964-65.
• The 1965 and 1966 droughts led to food imports under the US PL-480 programme.
• First Green Revolution states: Punjab, Haryana, western UP, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. It did not start in eastern India (Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal).
• The Green Revolution first favoured wheat over rice, and irrigated areas over rainfed ones.
• Agro-climatic planning started in 1988. The focus on rainfed areas came in the 1980s, and liberalisation in the 1990s.
• M.S. Swaminathan, architect of India's Green Revolution, received the Bharat Ratna in 2024.
• Groundwater classes: Safe ≤70%, Semi-critical 70–90%, Critical 90–100%, Over-exploited >100% stage of extraction. Punjab's stage was 156.87% in GWRA-2024 [3].
• India's foodgrain output in 2024-25 was a record 357.73 million tonnes. Rice (150.18 Mt) is larger than wheat (117.94 Mt) [2].
• The "cancer train" is linked to the Malwa region of Punjab.

Mains Points

• Causes of the Green Revolution: Partition took away irrigated land, output stagnated in the late 1950s, droughts struck in 1965-66, and India depended on PL-480 imports. New HYV technology was ready from Mexico and the Philippines, and the package method had already been tested through IADP and IAAP.
• Regional pattern: gains were concentrated in the irrigated north-west, in wheat. This widened the gaps with rainfed and eastern India. Policy responses followed: the spread east after the 1970s, the rainfed focus of the 1980s, agro-climatic planning in 1988 and BGREI.
• Environmental costs (GS-III): soil impoverishment, groundwater depletion and agrochemical contamination. In Punjab, 115 of 153 units are over-exploited, and uranium and nitrate exceed limits in many samples (GWRA-2024) [3]. Health and pollinator damage add to this. Responses include crop diversification away from paddy, micro-irrigation and balanced fertiliser use.
• Outcome: India moved from food imports to food self-reliance, with a record 357.73 Mt of food grains in 2024-25 [2]. Diversification into dairy, poultry, horticulture and fisheries raised farm incomes, but pulses and oilseeds still lag.