Structure:

Introduction: Talk about Green revolution and how it transformed Indian agriculture. Also mention that Green Revolution had effects on Indian society too.

Body: Try to link Green Revolution to unequal distribution of wealth in rural areas and how it increased in the income inequality and consequently social unrest. Also mention about regional imbalances with green revolution.

Conclusion: Conclude that Green Revolution was a mixed bag of things.

Content:

The Green Revolution, that had begun in the 1960's, is often credited with the success of making India a food-surplus nation, and from a nation that imported food grains, to the one that exports food grains on a large scale today.

How did Green revolution transform Indian Agriculture:

One of the most important impacts of green revolution (GR) was on raising the production and productivity of cereal crops, especially wheat and rice. The cereal production was increased due to three factors: (i) increase in net area under cultivation; (ii) growing two or more crops in a year on the same piece of land; and (iii) use of HYV seeds.

The GR resulted in a significant increase in the production of food grains from 72.4 million tons in 1965-66 to 131.9 million tons in 1978-79 establishing India as one of the world’s biggest agricultural producers. Per hectare yield of food grains increased from 6.3 quintal per hectare (Q/ha) in 1965-66 to 10.2 Q/ha in 1978-79.

Employment Generation: The impact of GR technology on employment generation in agriculture has been contentious. Critiques of Green Revolution argue that increased mechanization of farm practices in the green revolution regions reduced the employment absorption in agriculture. C. H. Hanumantha Rao, for instance, observed that GR technology in terms of ‘seeds-fertilizer-irrigation’ package had substantial positive impact on employment generation in agriculture but increased use of farm machines such as tractors contributed to a reduction in the employment generated. However, the use of tractor and other modern machines increased the aggregate level of employment by raising cropping intensity, farm productivity and changing cropping pattern. Moreover, farm machines and equipment also helped generate additional employment in the non-farm activities by way of forward and backward linkages. In other words, the use of technology and better inputs have created significant employment opportunities in the non-agricultural sectors of manufacturing as well as service sectors.

Further, expansion of irrigation (which was considered a pre- condition for the adoption of GR techniques) has generated more employment as irrigated crops have more agricultural operations as compared to the un-irrigated ones. In fact, the green revolution regions such as Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh experienced one of the major problems of shortage of agricultural labour resulting in the migration of workers from backward and poor agricultural regions to the GR regions for agricultural employment. Thus, the GR technology has created indirect employment opportunities to the agricultural workers of other regions.

Flow of Public/Private Investment in Agriculture: The most important factor behind the success of green revolution in India is availability of assured irrigation. The advent of tube-well technology, especially in the Indo-Gangetic basin, made significant contribution to enhance the per hectare crop yields. The new agricultural strategy required public investment in agricultural infrastructure, including investment in agricultural research, extension, power, roads, irrigation, etc. Government of India made huge public investment in agriculture in the regions where the new strategy was adopted. This investment made favourable impact on accelerating the pace of private investment too in agriculture. Farmers invested in tube-well, tractor & its accessories, electric and diesel pump sets, land levelling & development, etc.

Land Saving: Land is a limited resource with competing claims for alternative uses. Due to fast growth of population, urbanization and industrialization, demand for land for non- agricultural purposes has been continuously increasing. Release of land for non- agricultural purposes would be a less contentious issue if requirement of land for agricultural purposes is met through raising the productivity of land and other resources. In this context, GR technology is considered land-saving as it significantly increased the per hectare yield of various agricultural crops. Productivity growth in agriculture has also indirectly saved the forest land as in the absence of increased agricultural output due to GR, more forestland would have been converted into agriculture to meet out the requirement. From this point of view, it is also sometimes argued that the green revolution, instead of having negative impact on environment, has had positive impact on it by way of saving the forestland.

However, the reasons why it is considered to be responsible for the large-scale farmer's unrests today, are as follows:

1. The inequality that it sowed in the farm sector, with the rich farmers and land-owners cornering most of the benefits.
2. The high-cost of the inputs is mostly responsible for the huge burden of debt that the farmers have to bear today.
3. The excessive use of fertilizers, and insecticides and pesticides, have led to soil degradation, eventually affecting productivity in the long-run.
4. Only select states like Punjab, Haryana, and those in western Uttar Pradesh were able to benefit the most.
5. The Green revolution focussed particularly on the crops of rice and wheat, and thereby affected the traditional cropping systems drastically. this eventually led to a diminishing of incomes for farmers cultivating the other crops on their fields, due to the lack of sufficient incentives, as well as promotion.

However, some of the ways out of this are as follows:

1. Allowing for environmentally sustainable models of cropping in the fields.
2. Introducing a system of targeted subsidies, to tackle the issue of inequality with regard to access to inputs.
3. Expanding the coverage of the number of crops to be included, so that the cultivators of pulses, millets, etc receive a fair share of the benefits.
4. Promoting new systems of farming such as organic farming, with an eye on ensuring environmental protection.

The benefits of Green Revolution were many, especially in its early years. But, with the passage of time, the requirement of changes must be paid attention to, in the interest of sustainability.