Dr. Parveen Kumar,
Dr. Feroz Din Sheikh
As India celebrates its 72nd Republic Day today, it has many firsts and unique distinctions to celebrate. It is the day when India’s constitution came into force on January 26, 1950 completing the country’s transition toward becoming an independent republic. The country once called as the ‘land of snake charmers’ and ‘magicians’ now has proved its mettle in almost every field. Developmental trajectory of the country has been unparalleled. A country which remained under the rule of a foreign empire for about a century, which was looted of all its wealth and resources, has shown resurgence and resilience, extraordinary. Today the country has conquered land, space and water and become a role model for many other countries. Developmental programmes launched by the country have become case studies for other nations to learn, analyze and follow.
One of the sectors which deserve a mention as the country celebrates its 72nd republic day is the agricultural sector. At the time of independence, about 85 per cent of the country’s population lived in villages where livelihood completely was dependent on agriculture. But, the agriculture sector at that time suffered from low productivity and stagnation; was saddled with surplus labour. It was characterised by fragmented land ownership, outdated technology, crude practices, dependence on timely rainfall, low productivity, subsistence farming and feud amongst landowners and cultivators. It was referred to as the ‘begging bowl’ with major portion of our food requirements being met from imports from other countries.
The Green revolution era: The years after the 1960, India was suffering from low food grain production. Government of India under the then Prime Minister Late Indira Gandhi took major steps to reform agriculture sector. Dr. Norman Borlaug, an American Agronomist was invited to India by the adviser to the then Indian minister of agriculture C. Subramaniam. Resisting all the bureaucratic hurdles and the monopolies the Indian government and the Ford foundation collaborated to import wheat seed from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). The state of Punjab was selected to be the first site to try the new crops because of its reliable water supply and a history of agricultural success. India soon adopted IR-8, a semi-dwarf rice variety developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) that could produce more grains of rice per plant when grown with certain fertilizers and irrigation. In 1968, Indian agronomist S.K. De Datta published his findings that IR8 rice yielded about 5 tons per hectare with no fertilizer, and almost 10 tons per hectare under optimal conditions. This was 10 times the yield of traditional rice. IR8 was a success throughout Asia, and dubbed the ‘Miracle Rice.’ IR8 was also developed into Semi-dwarf IR-36. The production of wheat increased due to introduction of varieties like Lerma, Rajo, and Sonalika.
From a ‘begging bowl’ to a ‘bread basket’: India from a ‘begging bowl’ thus changed to a ‘bread basket’ and the fortune changed by what is known as ‘Green revolution’. Dr. Norman E Borlaug was the person credited with the green revolution and from saving millions of lives in India, Mexico and Middle East. Back home, Dr. M. S. Swaminathan took green revolution as a project. The period corresponding to 1967-78 witnessed huge upsurge in food grains production especially in states of Punjab Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Green revolution spread to millions of third world countries also. Reports reveal that the absolute number of poors peoples fell from 1.15 billion in 1975 to 825 million in 1995. All this happened despite a 60 per cent growth in population. Since the Green revolution of 1960s, India has never looked back. After seven decades, today we have developed many high yielding varieties of all crops, hybrid seeds of different crops with superior genotypes, modern technology and vast network of irrigation facilities which allow multiple cropping sequences. Although the share of agriculture sector in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has declined since independence but the sector accounts for about 15 percent of the GDP and supports 50 percent of the population.
Leading producer of many commodities: The climate of the country varies from humid and dry tropical in the south to temperate alpine in the northern reaches and has a great diversity of ecosystems. Four out of the 34 global biodiversity hotspots and 15 WWF global 200 eco-regions fall fully or partly within India. Having only 2.4 percent of the world’s land area, India harbours around eight percent of all recorded species, including over 45,000 plant and 91,000 animal species. The country has the largest area under cultivation. It is the largest producer of pulses, spices, milk, tea, cashew, jute, banana, jackfruit and many other commodities (FAO). It stands second in production of fruits and vegetables, wheat, rice, cotton and oilseeds. As per second advance estimates for 2019-20, total food grain production in the country is estimated at record 291.95 million tonnes. Production of wheat during 2019-20 is estimated at record 106.21 million tonnes. India is the 2nd largest grower of rice over the world. Increasing demand in the market, rice production is in trend in India including white rice and brown rice grown in the eastern and southern parts. The major rice production States in India are Punjab, Odisha, Assam, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. India has the largest cotton cultivation area all over the world after China and the USA and it is the prime agriculture commodity or fiber crop worldwide. India is the 3rd highest potato producing country. The major Potatoes producing states in India are Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.
India is also the second largest producer of Pulses in the world. In 2013, India contributed 25 per cent of the total pulses production of the world, the highest for any country. The country also has the largest livestock population. The 535.8 million livestock in the country constitute 31 per cent of the world’s livestock population and the milk production in the country accounts for 22 per cent of the global produce. With 520-million-workers, the Indian labour force is the world’s second-largest as of 2019.
The other side: The other side refers to the negative impact and threat posed to our environment by large scale indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and plant protection chemicals. The indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides raised the production, but now their harmful effects are clearly visible. The ground water has been rendered poisonous and contaminated with harmful chemicals. Such is the infestation that vast stretches of land extending up to kilometers is now not fit for any drinking water. Soils have been degraded, turned barren and a large number of biodiversity has been lost. As the area under green revolution was confined to northern parts of the country and in states like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and was confined to crops like Paddy and Wheat. The result was that peoples started growing more and more of Paddy. The Paddy being a water consuming crop drew a considerable amount of water from ground resulting in lowering of water table. It also led to the neglect of other crops like pulses and oilseeds. Such was the neglect that the country today has to import huge quantities of pulses and oilseeds from outside. The new plant varieties displaced local varieties thus leading to huge biodiversity loss. The irrigation projects increased the area under irrigation but with them came the problem of salinization, water logging and lowering of water tables due to excessive use of bore wells. We are also suffering from low productivity. Our yields per unit of land are still lower than most of other developed countries.
The Way Forward: From a chemical intensive green revolution, we have now to move towards an evergreen revolution based on the principles of sustainability, local resource use efficiency, economic viability, social compatibility and profitability. This in turn would not affect the quality of life on earth and caused any deterioration to the environment.
(The authors are Scientist and Head at KVK-Leh)
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