Indian agriculture after the Green Revolution (original) (raw)
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Green Revolution Revisited: The Contemporary Agrarian Situation in Punjab, India
Social Change, 2012
The Green Revolution was India’s first industrial agricultural revolution that replaced the traditional farming system completely. But the adverse consequences of Green Revolution in the form of stagnation in production aggravated the problems of the farmers in the era of post-Green Revolution in 1980s and 1990s. The late 1990s witnessed an emergency of debt-driven suicides and rapid indebtedness that had taken hold of the countryside across the nation. Being the epicentre, the Green Revolution in Punjab did not sustain for a long time, as it started losing its charm and was followed by a series of ‘crises’, especially in its economy and environment. The farmers in Punjab are facing a severe problem with stagnation in production due to vast cereal-based mono cropping (mainly wheat-rice cycle) instead of multiple cropping, abandoning other crops like pulses, mustard, vegetables, and so on. Besides the practice of monoculture, the application of expensive chemicals (like fertilisers, ...
In the Shadow of the Green Revolution: How India's Farms Have Changed over Time
Agricultural Growth With Sustainability: An Indian Perspective, 2023
This paper summarises how India’s Green Revolution has grown to become a detriment for the modern society. It outlines the progress of the country’s agriculture and emphasizes the impact of the agricultural practices adopted just after independence - one of the most challenging times in the country’s economic history. Through the adoption of industrialised farming practices, the country benefitted early on, yet the continual usage of such practices has proven to be heavily detrimental in the long run, which is also mentioned in this work. This paper also shares a few recommendations on sustainable farming practices. Keywords: Green Revolution, Farming Practices, Fertilizer Use, Sustainable Agriculture
Green Revolution Revisited: Contemporary Agrarian Situation in Punjab
The Green Revolution was India's first industrial agricultural revolution that replaced the traditional farming system completely. But the adverse consequences of Green Revolution in the form of stagnation in production aggravated the problems of the farmers in the era of post-Green Revolution in 1980s and 1990s. The late 1990s witnessed an emergency of debt-driven suicides and rapid indebtedness that had taken hold of the countryside across the nation. Being the epicentre, the Green Revolution in Punjab did not sustain for a long time, as it started losing its charm and was followed by a series of 'crises', especially in its economy and environment. The farmers in Punjab are facing a severe problem with stagnation in production due to vast cereal-based mono cropping (mainly wheat-rice cycle) instead of multiple cropping, abandoning other crops like pulses, mustard, vegetables, and so on. Besides the practice of monoculture, the application of expensive chemicals (like fertilisers, pesticides, weedicides, and so on), over-mechanisation, labour and irrigation eventually increased the input cost of cultivation manifolds. Due to this high input costs of cultivation, farmers resorted to various formal (like banks, cooperatives, and so on) and informal (like local moneylenders or arhtiyas, who are commission agents in the grain markets) credit institutions for borrowing money. But due to repeated stagnation, the net output and subsequent profit margin reduced drastically. As a result, farmers could not repay the loan and eventually got entrapped into the vicious cycle of debt. On the other hand, after the liberalised economic policy of the government, the farmers received marginal importance and they could not cope up with the free and open market system. As a result, the incidence of indebtedness increased at an alarming rate. To get rid of indebtedness, many farmers Article Social Change 42(2) 229-247 230
2nd Green Revolution and Agribusiness in Emerging India – Policies, Strategies and Future
There is much talk in recent times about the need for a second green revolution as the country will have to increase its agricultural output by over 340 million tonnes by 2020 in the face of an increasing demand by a growing population. According to Prime Minister Monmohan Singh, a double digit GDP growth rate would forever elude India without a dramatic turnaround of the rural economy. Recalling that the first green revolution was limited to only five crops with the main focus on wheat and that too in a few areas of the country, mainly Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, studies have revealed that the cost-intensive green revolution helped the rich farmers while the small and marginal farmers did not receive the desired benefits and their conditions showed a decline.
Persistence of crisis in Indian agriculture: need for technological and institutional alternatives
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The crisis in Indian agriculture has two dimensions-agricultural developmental and agrarian livelihood. Some aspects of the agricultural crisis are decelertion in production, productivity and value of output from early 1990s in almost all crops. Withdrawal of the state from public investment in irrigation and related infrastructure, providing access to formal credit, and waning link between research & extension and farming. As a result, the farmer faces multiple risks, vagaries of weather, price shocks, and spurious inputs among others, ...
Indian Agriculture: Before and After Economic Reforms
Agriculture once known as the backbone of Indian Economy is at present at its worst, thanks to the anti farmer, pro-Industry policy of the various Indian Governments since 1991. India is once considered as the "Ann Data" of the entire world is struggling even to manage the own demand-supply problem of various agricultural commodities. The farmers are committing suicides, are celebrating "Crop Holidays" and are fighting with Govt. for illegal acquisition of land for developing Real estate or other commercially viable projects at the cost of Agriculture. The aim of this paper is to bring out the present scenario in the field of agriculture that leads to the minimum contribution of Agriculture in the Indian GDP, once the main contributor. This paper will discuss the various issues like less technical support to farmers, poor quality seeds, inappropriate storage, Minimum Support Price, irrigation, the problem of credit availability and above all the impact of Liberal...
A good comprehensive book that covers all major issues of Indian agriculture, over time and space, has been missing for a while, and here is one such book by Akina Venkateswerlu which can fill that void. With broad objective to cover all issues and give a political economy analysis at one place, the book becomes little bulky, with about 22 chapters, divided into seven parts. These essentially cover a long list of issues like colonial impact, land reforms, Green Revolution, Neoliberal reforms, credit, marketing, extension, PDS, procurement, WTO obligations, GM seeds, SEZs, post-globalization agrarian crisis, and mode of production, blending critical review, data and policy issues, covering seventy years. The breadth of issues covered at one place has its advantages. The book has an implicit framework of political economy, state policy being seen as an outcome of promoting interests of contending class forces. The book purports the efforts of the state to promote growth determined by the capital accumulation, the speed and the social character of the accumulating class. The standard narrative of this approach presents the policy failures and achievements as progressive and constrained process of aiding the capitalist development. The book in its part gives precisely these aspects, locating them since colonial times to the post-independent development. Chapter 1 discusses the impact of colonial policy on Indian agriculture, its forcible commercializing, taxation policies, creating complex semi-feudal structures in land, labour, credit and output markets and the resultant long-term stagnation and misery. The book also takes us at a great length through the failures of making progressive land redistribution (chapters 4 and 5) and resorting to technological options to increase the market surplus. The book puts the assessment of green revolution, including India, as of precarious dependence on US imports under PL 480 and its influence on our policy choices of technology. In spite of criticism, green revolution is hailed for boosting area under new seeds, productivity and output and in enabling the country to overcome acute food shortage, become self-sufficient, reduce rural poverty, increased modernization, per capital availability and an agrarian change. The book takes us through the achievements, growth from mid-seventies and eighties, increasing yields, expanded area and production. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 elaborately document
Challenges for Revival of Indian Agriculture
Agricultural Economics Research Review, 2009
In India, economic growth has improved significantly during the past two and a half decades, particularly in the post-reform period. India is considered as one of the fastest growing economies in the world. However, the exclusion problems have not been addressed seriously by the government programmes and strategies. The experience of the economic reforms during the past 15 years indicates that while there have been improvements in the economic growth, foreign exchange, IT revolution, export growth, etc., the income distribution has been unequal and only some sections of the population have been benefited more from this higher growth and prosperity. In other words, real development in terms of growth shared by all sections of the population has not taken place. We have problems of poverty, unemployment, inequalities in access to credit, health care and education and poor performance of the agriculture sector. One of the excluded sectors during the reform period was agriculture which ...