Initiation of the Green Revolution by Aaryama Somyaji
The Green Revolution in India started in the late 1960s in Punjab. During this period, India saw a shift in its agricultural practices. The nation moved toward a more industrial system and adopted technologies like high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, mechanized farm tools, irrigation systems, pesticides, and fertilizers.
The Green Revolution began in 1968. In the first year, 2.4 million hectares of land of a total of 130 million hectares were reserved for the cultivation of HYV seeds
The successful results of the experiment led to an increase in the area under cultivation to 15 million hectares by 1970-1971. The impact of the Green Revolution could be seen in the lush green agricultural fields of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and in what are today Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Initiation of the Green Revolution by Aaryama Somyaji
The impact of the use of the HYV seeds was such that after just a year of use of the seeds, grain output grew to 17 million tons, or 5 million tons more than the previous year.
With the increase in cultivation land, the total yield of grain in 1971 increased to 104 million tons, a 40% increase from the twin drought years 1965-1966.
Failed monsoons and droughts had afflicted India in the ‘60s, but even in a bumper monsoon year of 1964-65, the food aid totaled 7 million tons only. Food-insufficient India, in the 1960s, was reliant on food aid as part of the Indo-US P.L. 480 agreement. India was importing 10 million tons of wheat from the United States, something that formally ended in 1971 when India became a food-sufficient country.
Initiation of the Green Revolution by Aaryama Somyaji
Dr Norman Borlaug, an agronomist from the United States, in the 1950s forever changed the world of agriculture. After completing his Ph.D., in plant pathology and genetics at the University of Minnesota, Dr Borlaug moved to Mexico, where he created a hybrid wheat plant that resisted fungus and diseases and provided a high yield.
When India began adopting his methods, it imported 18,000 tons of HYV of wheat from Mexico, laying the foundations of the Green Revolution.
The figure who brought this revolution to India’s doorsteps was Dr. MS Swaminathan, the father of the Indian Green Revolution.
Born on the 7th of August 1925, Mankombu Swaminathan was deeply affected by the 1943 Bengal Famine, so much so that he gave up the study of zoology to take up agricultural science to contribute to food security in the country.
Dr. Swaminathan was a part of the Norman Borlaug initiative and he was the one who introduced high-yielding varieties of wheat in India.
Initiation of the Green Revolution by Aaryama Somyaji
He recognized India could use the Mexican wheat developed by Borlaug. India was an agrarian country with 70% of its population relying on agriculture. Dr. Swaminathan was trying to convince the Indian government to use the HYV seeds in farming.
Initiation of the Green Revolution by Aaryama Somyaji
However, the government and the farming community were skeptical about using this new variety of wheat.
Initiation of the Green Revolution by Aaryama Somyaji
The first politician to put faith in the solution Swaminathan had come up with was Chidambaram Subramaniam, who was the Minister of Agriculture in the Shastri government.
The first politician to put faith in the solution Swaminathan had come up with was Chidambaram Subramaniam, who was the Minister of Agriculture in the Shastri government. He was so committed to crafting India’s new agricultural policy, he turned his lawn in Delhi into a demonstration plot. The sowed seeds gave results, proving that these new methods could solve chronic food shortages.
Initiation of the Green Revolution by Aaryama Somyaji
After the government, it was the farmers' turn to be convinced. Swaminathan and his team, in 1964, were given funding to plant these seeds and deploy new agriculture methods in a total of 150 demonstration plots located on 1-hectare land. The results were promising enough to assuage the worries of the farmers.
India is a food surplus country today, and it has taken a lot to get to this point. The collective efforts of the scientific and farming community, and the political will to make India self-reliant, got the country out of the desperate conditions the newly free India was in.
As the food imports reduced, farmers prospered and rural employment increased.
Initiation of the Green Revolution by Aaryama Somyaji
Large-scale farm mechanization also led to Industrial growth. The Green Revolution ushered India into a new age where there was enough food for every mouth, and the dream of a hungry-free India was possible.
Illustrations by Aaryama Somayaji