assignment on green revolution in india

Green Revolution in India Advantages, Impacts, Achievements

Green Revolution in India started in the year 1965. Green Revolution had significant impact in agriculture in India. Green Revolution in India for UPSC. Short notes on Green Revolution, pdf.

Table of Contents

What is Green Revolution?

The rapid gains in wheat and rice yields in developing nations caused by improved varieties and increased fertiliser and other chemical input use are known as the “Green Revolution,” which has had a significant influence on incomes and food supplies in many of these nations. William Gaud coined the phrase “green revolution,” and Norman Borlaug is regarded as its founder due to which he was honoured with Nobel Prize in 1970 for developing High Yielding Verities of Wheat.

Green Revolution in India

Green Revolution in India is the process of boosting agricultural output using contemporary methods and instruments. The Green Revolution is related to agricultural output. It was during this period that the nation’s agriculture was transformed into an industrial system by the adoption of modern agricultural practices such as the use of high-yielding seed varieties, tractors, irrigation systems, herbicides, and fertilizers.

Up until 1967, the government’s main focus was on enlarging the agricultural areas. However, the rapidly growing population demanded drastic and fast action to enhance yield, which manifested itself in the form of the Green Revolution.

Father of Green Revolution in India

In the year of 1965, the Indian Indian initiated the Green Revolution under the supervision of a geneticist, who is also known as the father of the Green Revolution in India M.S. Swaminathan . Revolution within India led to an increase in food grain production, mostly in the regions of Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. A major landmark in this undertaking was the development of high-yielding varieties (HYV) seeds of wheat, and rust resistant strains of wheat. Personalities and Institutions recognized for their efforts during the Green Revolution in India are,

• Main Architect and the Father of Green Revolution in India – M.S. Swaminathan
• Political Father of Green Revolution and the Food and Agriculture Minister – Chidambaram Subramaniam
• Father of Wheat Revolution – Dilbagh Singh Athwal
• IARI – Indian Agricultural Research Institute

Important Schemes Related to Green Revolution in India

Green Revolution in India’s History

The Bengal Famine, which occurred in 1943 and was the worst food crisis ever recorded, caused an estimated 4 million people to die of starvation in eastern India. Even after independence in 1947, the government’s focus on enlarging the agricultural lands persisted until 1967. However, the rate of population growth was outpacing the rate of food production. To boost yield, an immediate and dramatic intervention was required. The Green Revolution served as the catalyst for the action. 

With the assistance of a geneticist also known as the Father of The Green Revolution (India), M.S. Swaminathan , the Indian government began the Green Revolution in 1965. The country’s status was transformed from one of the world’s leading agricultural nations as a result of the green revolution, which was a huge success.

It began in 1967 and continued until 1978. The term “green revolution” in India refers to a time when contemporary agricultural practices and technology, such as the use of HYV seeds, tractors, irrigation systems, pesticides, and fertilizers, transformed Indian agriculture into an industrial system. India’s Green Revolution increased agricultural output, particularly in Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh.

Green Revolution in India Objectives

The Green Revolution in India has several specific characteristics. 

• Growth in the size of agricultural areas
• Double cropping systems, or the practice of growing crops twice a year.
• Due to the construction of dams and the adoption of other basic irrigation techniques, water was now obtained from extensive irrigation projects.
• Using high-yield variety seeds that were generated from new strains of seeds with enhanced genetics.

Wheat, rice, jowar, bajra, and maize were the principal crops. Grain products other than food were not included in the new strategy’s scope. For many years, wheat remained the foundation of the Green Revolution.

Green Revolution in India: Positive Effects

In 1978–1979, a tremendous increase in crop production led to a grain output of 131 million tonnes, making India one of the largest agricultural producers in the world. The area of crops planted with high-yielding wheat and rice varieties increased significantly during the Green Revolution. India was able to become self-sufficient in food grains and occasionally even had enough stock in the central pool to export grains. Additionally, there are now more food grains available per person on a net basis.

The Green Revolution’s introduction assisted farmers in increasing their level of revenue. Farmers invested their extra money back into their fields to increase productivity. The major farmers who had more than 10 hectares of land gained the most from this revolution because they made significant financial investments in HYV seeds, fertilizer, machinery, etc. It supported capitalist farming as well.

Large-scale farm mechanization brought about by the Green Revolution in India increased demand for several equipment types, including tractors, harvesters, threshers, combines, diesel engines, electric motors, pumping sets, etc. Additionally, there was a significant growth in demand for chemical fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, pesticides, etc. Agro-based industries are those that utilize a variety of agricultural products as raw materials.

Due to fertilizer use and multiple cropping, there was a noticeable increase in the need for labourers. The Green Revolution produced a large number of jobs for both industrial and agricultural employees by building connected facilities including factories and hydroelectric power plants.

Impacts of Green Revolution in India

Although the revolution has benefited all food grains, including wheat, rice, jowar, bajra, and maize, other crops including coarse cereals, pulses, and oilseeds have been excluded. Major cash crops including sugarcane, cotton, jute, tea, and cotton were also largely unaffected by the Green Revolution. Only five crops were allowed under the High Yielding Variety Program (HYVP): maize, wheat, rice, jowar, and bajra. Therefore, the new method did not apply to non-food grains. The HYV seeds in the non-food crops either hadn’t been developed yet or weren’t good enough for farmers to take a chance on using them.

Growing regional and international economic imbalances are a result of the Green Revolution’s technological advancements. Only 40% of the overall cultivated area has been impacted thus far, while 60% is still unaffected. Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh in the north, and Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the south, are the region’s most severely impacted.

The Eastern region, which includes Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, and Orissa, as well as the dry and semi-arid regions of Western and Southern India, has rarely been affected. Only those places that were already in a better position agriculturally were impacted by the Green Revolution. Thus, the Green Revolution has caused the issue of regional inequality to worsen.

Pesticides and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers were widely used during the Green Revolution to improve irrigation systems and crop types. To inform farmers about the substantial risk involved with the intensive use of pesticides, however, very little or no effort was taken. Typically, uneducated farm labourers sprayed pesticides on crops without taking any safety precautions or following any instructions. Crops suffer more harm than benefit from this, and they also pollute the environment and soil. The crops which were developed at the time of the green revolution required a lot of water.

The majority of these crops, which are cereals, use roughly 50% of the water used by the human body. Groundwater levels were depleted as a result of the introduction of canal systems and irrigation pumps that drained groundwater out of the ground to irrigate crops like rice and sugarcane that require large amounts of water.

The nutrients in the soil were depleted by repeated crop cycles meant to ensure higher crop yield. Farmers used more fertilizer to fulfil the need for new varieties of seeds. The use of these alkaline compounds caused the pH level of the soil to rise. Beneficial pathogens were eliminated by toxic chemicals in the soil, which further decreased production.

Farm mechanization brought about by the Green Revolution led to widespread unemployment among agricultural labourers in rural areas, with the exception of Punjab and to a lesser extent Haryana. The poor and labourers who were without land were most negatively impacted. Numerous serious ailments, such as cancer, renal failure, stillbirth, and birth deformities, were caused by the extensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Green Revolution in India Achievements

There have been numerous cropping pattern adjustments and agricultural advancements in India as a result of the country’s green revolution.

Farmers today enjoy wealth thanks to the Green Revolution. Agriculture is thought of as a lucrative profession. The demand for consumer products has surged in Punjab. In Punjab, the standard of living has increased. All crops, including wheat, rice, cotton, gram, maize, and bajra, have increased per hectare production. Better seeds are the cause. The Green Revolution has had a significant impact on industry development. Industries have been put up that produce agricultural equipment like tractors, diesel engines, combines, threshers, and pumping sets. 

Production growth is the Green Revolution’s primary accomplishment. 33.89 lakh tones of cereal grains were produced in 1965–1966. The output increased to 119 lakh tones in 1980–1981 The rural masses now enjoy wealth thanks to the green revolution. Bumper crops have given rural populations work options. Their quality of life has improved. The need for labour rose as a result of multiple cropping and excessive usage of chemical fertilizers. A severe labour shortage is seen during the sowing and harvesting seasons. Consequently, the green revolution has created jobs.

Second Green Revolution in India

The first Green Revolution was initiated with the objective of eradicating food scarcity in India whereas the second Green Revolution focuses on the Sustainability of Agriculture with the adoption of scientific and organic modes of agricultural practices with an objective of tackling the challenges as

• Food Inflation
• Crop Productivity
• Environmental Hazards
• Manure, Fertilizers and Biocides
• Agriculture Marketing

The government has taken several steps to tackle these issues, Krishi Vigyan Yojana, Operation Green, eNAM, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), Kisan Credit Card (KCC), Per Drop More Crop Initiative, Har Medh Par Ped, PM Kisan Sampada Yojana (Food Processing) etc.

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Green Revolution in India FAQs

Who is started green revolution in india.

M S Swaminathan is referred as the father of Green Revolution in India as he founded it. He was inspired from the initiative of Norman Borlaug.

Who comes Green Revolution in India?

In India, the Green Revolution was mainly led by M.S. Swaminathan. The Green Revolution resulted in a significant increase in production of food grains (especially wheat and rice) due to the introduction into developing countries of new, high-yielding variety seeds, beginning in the mid-20th century.

What did the Green Revolution do for India?

The green revolution led to high productivity of crops through adapted measures, such as increased in the area under farming, double-cropping method, which includes planting two crops rather than one, annually, adoption of HYV of seeds, highly increased use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides, and improved cropping pattern

Where was the Green Revolution introduced in India?

The Green revolution started in India started with its introduction in Punjab in 1966. It was part of a development program that was registered by the government of India along with international donor agencies.

Q. Was Green Revolution a success in India?

The Green Revolution yielded great economic productivity during its early years. In Punjab, where it was first introduced, the Green Revolution led to significant increases in the state’s agricultural growth, supporting India’s overall economy.

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Green Revolution

Green revolution [latest news].

The Green Revolution (a term used for rapid increases in wheat and rice yields in developing countries brought about by improved varieties combined with the expanded use of fertilizers and other chemical inputs) has had a dramatic impact on incomes and food supplies in many developing countries.

Green Revolution In India PDF Download PDF Here

Green Revolution In News (MS Swaminathan Passes Away)

MS Swaminathan, the Father of the Indian Green Revolution, passed away on 28 September 2023, in Chennai aged 98. To know more about M S Swaminathan, ( August 7, 1925) the father of the Green Revolution in India, kindly check the linked article. 

The term green revolution was first used by William Gaud. Norman Borlaug is considered the Father of the Green Revolution. 

In the year 1965, the government of India launched the Green Revolution with the help of a geneticist, now known as the father of the Green Revolution (India) M.S. Swaminathan . The movement of the Green Revolution was a great success and changed the country’s status from a food-deficient economy to one of the world’s leading agricultural nations. It started in 1967 and lasted till 1978.

Aspirants must go through all important agricultural revolutions that have taken place, for the IAS Exam preparation:

This article shares details on the Green Revolution, its meaning and features, and how there has been a boost in agricultural production efficiency because of the green revolution in India. You will also know about various schemes under the Green Revolution in India. 

The Green Revolution within India led to an increase in agricultural production, especially in Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh. Major milestones in this undertaking were the development of a high-yielding variety of seeds of wheat and rust-resistant strains of wheat.

Knowledge of the Green Revolution in India is important from the point of view of various competitive exams. Candidates preparing for bank exams, SSC, RRB, Insurance exam, or other Government exams must keep abreast with the Green Revolution as questions related to this topic are asked in the general awareness section of the exams. 

Aspirants of the UPSC exam should understand the Green Revolution topic for Static GK section and Geography GS I Paper.  

Table of Contents:

Aspects of Green Revolution in India

• High Yielding Varieties (HYV)
• Mechanization of Agriculture
• Use of Chemical Fertilizers and Pesticides

The Green Revolution is referred to as the process of increasing agricultural production by incorporating modern tools and techniques.  Green Revolution is associated with agricultural production. It is the period when agriculture of the country was converted into an industrial system due to the adoption of modern methods and techniques like the use of high yielding variety seeds, tractors, irrigation facilities, pesticides, and fertilizers.  Until 1967, the government majorly concentrated on expanding the farming areas. But the rapidly increasing population than the food production called for a drastic and immediate action to increase yield which came in the form of the Green Revolution.

The method of green revolution focused on three basic elements, that are:

• Using seeds with improved genetics (High Yielding Variety seeds).
• Double cropping in the existing farmland and,
• The continuing expansion of farming areas

Schemes Under Green Revolution (India)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the Umbrella Scheme Green Revolution – ‘Krishonnati Yojana’ in the agriculture sector for the period of three years from 2017 to 2020 with the Central Share of Rs. 33,269.976 crore.The Umbrella scheme Green revolution- Krishonnati Yojana comprises 11 Schemes under it and all these schemes look to develop the agriculture and allied sector in a scientific and holistic manner so as to increase the income of farmers by increasing productivity, production, and better returns on produce, strengthening production infrastructure, reducing the cost of production and marketing of agriculture and allied produce. The 11 schemes that are part of the Umbrella Schemes under the Green revolution are:

• MIDH – Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture – It aims to promote the comprehensive growth of the horticulture sector, enhance the production of the sector, improve nutritional security, and increase income support to household farms. This mission was undertaken to establish production clusters and hubs to encourage the development of infrastructural facilities for processing, post-harvest management, and exports.
• NFSM – National Food Security Mission – This includes NMOOP – National Mission on Oil Seeds and Oil Palm. The aim of this scheme is to increase the production of wheat pulses, rice, coarse cereals and commercial crops, productivity enhancement, and area expansion in a suitable manner, enhancing farm level economy, restoring soil fertility and productivity at the individual farm level. It further aims to reduce imports and increase the availability of vegetable oils and edible oils in the country.
• NMSA – National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture – the aim is to promote sustainable agriculture practices that are best suitable to the specific agro-ecology focusing on integrated farming, appropriate soil health management, and synergizing resource conservation technology. It also strives to minimise farmers’ agricultural costs through sustainable integrated organic farming systems, hence increasing farmers’ net income per unit of land, and producing chemical-free and nutritious food for human consumption in a sustainable manner.
• SMAE – Submission on Agriculture Extension – this scheme aims to strengthen the ongoing extension mechanism of State Governments, local bodies, etc. achieving food security and socio-economic empowerment of farmers, to forge effective linkages and synergy amongst various stakeholders, to institutionalize program planning and implementation mechanism, support HRD interventions, promote pervasive and innovative use of electronic and print media, interpersonal communication, and ICT tools, etc.
• SMSP – Sub-Mission on Seeds and Planting Material –  This aims to increase the production of quality seed, upgrade the quality of farm-saved seeds and increase SRR, strengthen the seed multiplication chain, and promote new methods and technologies in seed production, processing, testing, etc., to strengthen and modernize infrastructure for seed production, storage, quality, and certification, etc.
• SMAM – Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanisation – aims to increase the reach of farm mechanization to small and marginal farmers and to the regions where availability of farm power is low, to promote ‘Custom Hiring Centres’ to offset the adverse economies of scale arising due to small landholding and high cost of individual ownership, to create hubs for hi-tech and high-value farm equipment, to create awareness among stakeholders through demonstration and capacity building activities, and to ensure performance testing and certification at designated testing centres located all over the country.
• SMPPQ – Sub Mission on Plant Protection and Plan Quarantine –  the aim of this scheme is to minimize loss to quality and yield of agricultural crops from insects, pests, weeds, etc., to shield our agricultural bio-security from the incursions and spread of alien species, to facilitate exports of Indian agricultural commodities to global markets, and to promote good agricultural practices, particularly with respect to plant protection strategies and strategies.
• ISACES – Integrated Scheme on Agriculture Census, Economics, and Statistics – this aims to undertake the agriculture census, undertake research studies on agro-economic problems of the country, study the cost of cultivation of principal crops, fund conferences, workshops, and seminars involving eminent agricultural scientists, economists, experts so as to bring out papers to conduct short term studies, improve agricultural statistics methodology and to create a hierarchical information system on crop condition and crop production from sowing to harvest.
• ISAC – Integrated Scheme on Agricultural Cooperation aims to provide financial assistance for improving the economic conditions of cooperatives, remove regional imbalances, to speed up cooperative development in agricultural processing, storage, marketing, computerization, and weaker section programs; ensuring the supply of quality yarn at reasonable rates to the decentralized weavers and help cotton growers fetch a remunerative price for their produce through value addition.
• ISAM – Integrated Scheme on Agricultural Marketing – this scheme aims to develop agricultural marketing infrastructure; to promote innovative technologies and competitive alternatives in agriculture marketing infrastructure; to provide infrastructure facilities for grading, standardization, and quality certification of agricultural produce; to establish a nation­wide marketing information network; to integrate markets through a common online market platform to facilitate pan-India trade in agricultural commodities, etc.
• And, NeGP-A – National e-Governance Plan aims to bring farmer-centric & service-oriented programs; to improve access of farmers to information and services throughout the crop-cycle and enhance the reach and impact of extension services; to build upon, enhance and integrate the existing ICT initiatives of the Centre and States; to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of programs through providing timely and relevant information to the farmers for increasing their agriculture productivity.

Green Revolution (Features)

• Introduced High Yielding Variety seeds in Indian agriculture. 
• The HYV seeds were highly effective in regions that had rich irrigation facilities and were more successful with the wheat crop. Therefore, the Green Revolution at first focused on states with better infrastructure such as Tamil Nadu and Punjab.
• During the second phase, the high yielding variety seeds were given to other states, and crops other than wheat were also included in the plan. 
• The most important requirement for the high yielding variety seeds is proper irrigation. Crops grown from HYV seeds need good amounts of water supply and farmers could not depend on monsoon. Hence, the Green Revolution has improved the irrigation systems around farms in India.
• Commercial crops and cash crops such as cotton, jute, oilseeds, etc were not a part of the plan. Green revolution in India mainly emphasized food grains such as wheat and rice. 
• To enhance farm productivity green revolution increased the availability and use of fertilizers, weedicides, and pesticides to reduce any damage or loss to the crops.
• It also helped in promoting commercial farming in the country with the introduction of machinery and technology like harvesters, drills, tractors, etc.

Aspirants of any competitive exams can check the important links given below to boost their preparation:

Impact of Green Revolution in India

• Green Revolution has remarkably increased Agricultural Production. Foodgrains in India saw a great rise in output. The biggest beneficiary of the revolution was the Wheat Grain. The production increased to 55 million tonnes in the early stage of the plan itself. 
• Not just limited to agricultural output the revolution also increased per Acre yield. Green Revolution increased the per hectare yield in the case of wheat from 850 kg per hectare to an incredible 2281 kg/hectare in its early stage.
• With the introduction of the Green revolution, India reached its way to self-sufficiency and was less dependent on imports. The production in the country was sufficient to meet the demand of the rising population and to stock it for emergencies. Rather than depending on the import of food grains from other countries India started exporting its agricultural produce. 
• The introduction of the revolution inhibited a fear among the masses that commercial farming would lead to unemployment and leave a lot of the labour force jobless. But the result seen was totally different there was a rise in rural employment. The tertiary industries such as transportation, irrigation, food processing, marketing, etc created employment opportunities for the workforce.
• The Green Revolution in India majorly benefited the farmers of the country. Farmers not only survived but also prospered during the revolution their income saw a significant rise which enabled them to shift from sustenance farming to commercial farming.

Besides the positive impact, the revolution had a gloomy side too.  Some of the negative effects of the Green Revolution are stated below:

• Retardation of agricultural growth due to inadequate irrigation cover, shrinking farm size, failure to evolve new technologies, inadequate use of technology, declining plan outlay, unbalanced use of inputs, and weaknesses in credit delivery system.
• Regional dispersal of the evolution created regional inequalities. The benefits of the green revolution remained concentrated in the areas where the new technology was used. Moreover, since the revolution for the number of years remained limited to wheat production, its benefits were mostly accrued only to wheat-growing areas.
• Interpersonal inequalities between large and small scale farmers. The new technologies introduced during the revolution called for substantial investments which were beyond the means of a majority of small farmers. Farmers having large farmlands continued to make greater absolute gains in income by reinvesting the earnings in farm and non-farm assets, purchasing land from the smaller cultivators, etc.

Knowledge of the Green revolution, Schemes under the Green revolution its aspects, features, and impact are important for various exams, especially the most coveted UPSC exam. Candidates can also read about the  agricultural revolutions in India in the linked article. 

FAQ about Green Revolution

Who started green revolution in india, what were the high yielding variety crops concentrated during green revolution, what was the aim of green revolution in india, what is the conclusion of green revolution in india, what are five major benefits of green revolution.

Major benefits that accrue to green revolution are:

• Increase in Agricultural Production
• Prosperity of Farmers
• Reduction in import of food-grains
• Capitalistic Farming
• Ploughing back of profit
• Industrial Growth
• Rural Employment

Candidates can find out what are the topics in the UPSC Exams by visiting the UPSC Syllabus page. For more preparation materials they can refer to the links given in the table below. 

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Table of Contents

Green Revolution: A quick recap of what we achieved

(relevant for general   studies paper | economics| prelims/mains).

M.S. Swaminathan has passed away, but his influence endures among every student and scientist in the field of agriculture. He is best known for collaborating with Norman Borlaug to initiate the Green Revolution in India during the mid-1960s, a critical period marked by consecutive droughts.

The Green Revolution played a pivotal role in averting mass starvation, a scenario that seemed imminent at the time. India was already labeled a “ship to mouth” economy, relying on the import of 10 million tonnes from the US through the P.L.480 scheme. Unfortunately, the country lacked the foreign exchange to meet these demands. The gravity of the situation led Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to appeal to the nation to “skip a meal in a week,” and even wheat-based products, including chapattis, were excluded from wedding festivities.

Need for Green revolution

• In the 1960s, India confronted a dire food crisis marked by swift population growth, inadequate agricultural productivity, recurrent droughts, and reliance on imported food.
• India found itself susceptible to external pressures and political interventions from food-exporting nations, particularly the United States, which utilized food assistance as a diplomatic and leverage tool.
• The primary goals for India were to attain self-sufficiency and ensure food security for its population, aiming to alleviate poverty and malnutrition. India aspired to modernize its agricultural sector , making it more streamlined, profitable, and globally competitive.

Benefits of Green revolution

• Enhanced Food Production: The Green Revolution brought about a substantial surge in agricultural productivity by introducing new high-yielding crop varieties, such as dwarf wheat and rice. These varieties yielded more produce per hectare of land, effectively addressing the escalating global demand for food. For instance, during 1978–1979, a remarkable spike in crop production resulted in a grain output of 131 million tonnes, positioning India among the world’s foremost agricultural producers.
• Decreased Dependence on Food Imports : India transitioned into a net exporter of wheat, rice, and other food grains like rye, maize, sorghum, buckwheat, bajra, and ragi, with negligible imports. In the fiscal year 2020-21, India achieved record-high rice exports of 18.5 million tonnes and wheat exports of 2.1 million tonnes, the highest in six years.
• Alleviation of Poverty: Elevated agricultural productivity often equates to increased incomes for farmers, contributing to poverty alleviation. The Green Revolution played a pivotal role in lifting numerous small-scale farmers out of poverty by boosting their crop yields and income levels.For instance, the rural poverty ratio in India declined from 50.1% in 1993-94 to 25.7% in 2011-12, partially attributed to the impact of the Green Revolution.
• Technological Progress: The Green Revolution introduced farmers to cutting-edge agricultural technologies, encompassing improved seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. These technological advancements persist in benefiting agriculture today, fostering sustainable practices and heightened efficiency. The adoption of improved seeds has augmented the genetic diversity of crops, enhancing resilience against pests, diseases, and climate variations. Mechanized farm tools, such as tractors, harvesters, and irrigation systems, have curtailed labor costs and augmented farm productivity.
• Rural Advancement: Elevated agricultural productivity can spur rural development, empowering farmers to invest in their communities. This, in turn, leads to enhanced infrastructure, education, and healthcare in rural areas.
• In India, for example, the Green Revolution prompted the expansion of rural roads, electrification, irrigation, and communication networks, enhancing the accessibility and connectivity of rural regions.
• Mitigation of Land Conversion: By amplifying crop yields, the Green Revolution mitigated the necessity to convert forests and other natural habitats into agricultural land. This has yielded positive environmental effects by conserving biodiversity and reducing deforestation.
• Economic Expansion: The escalated agricultural productivity stemming from the Green Revolution has been correlated with overall economic growth in various countries. Agriculture emerges as a pivotal driver of economic development in numerous regions, and augmented yields can catalyze growth across the entire economy.

Challenges brought by the Green Revolution

• Environmental Impact: The Green Revolution induced environmental degradation through the utilization of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, contributing to soil erosion and water pollution. The dependence on modern agricultural technologies has rendered certain countries and communities reliant on external inputs, which can be costly and susceptible to market fluctuations.
• Consequence on Biodiversity : The Green Revolution resulted in the decline of biodiversity and genetic diversity among crops, along with the displacement of indigenous crops and traditional farming practices. Notably, the production of wheat and rice doubled post the Green Revolution, while other food crops, including indigenous rice varieties and millets, experienced a decrease.
• Social and Economic Ramifications: The Green Revolution instigated social and economic disparities and conflicts among farmers, regions, and countries. For instance, it has been associated with farmer suicides, rural indebtedness, and droughts in India.
• Heightened Crop Vulnerability : The Green Revolution amplified the susceptibility of crops to pests, diseases, and climate change . The monoculture of rice and wheat, for instance, heightened their vulnerability to outbreaks of pests and diseases, such as the brown plant hopper and wheat rust.

Can Green Revolution 2.0 become  a Solution to the Green Revolution

Green Revolution 2.0 is envisioned as a strategy to enhance the adaptability and resilience of agriculture to evolving climate and socio-economic conditions, ensuring food and nutrition security for present and future generations.

Key Features of Green Revolution 2.0 include:

• Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering : Emphasizing biotechnology and genetic engineering to cultivate crops with heightened resilience to climate change, pests, and diseases. Responsibly adopting genetically modified (GM) crops can contribute to increased productivity and reduced environmental impact.
• Precision Agriculture: Utilizing advanced technologies like GPS-guided tractors and drones to optimize resource use, including water, fertilizers, and pesticides. Precision agriculture enhances efficiency while reducing the environmental footprint of farming.
• Sustainability: Prioritizing sustainability by endorsing practices that conserve soil health, diminish chemical inputs, and minimize the environmental repercussions of agriculture. This encompasses organic farming, agro ecology, and integrated pest management.
• Diversification: Unlike the initial Green Revolution, which concentrated on a few staple crops like wheat and rice, Green Revolution 2.0 advocates for crop diversification. Encouraging the cultivation of a broader array of crops enriches nutrition, mitigates risks linked to mono-cropping, and safeguards biodiversity.
• Holistic Approach: Taking a holistic stance towards agriculture, recognizing that it extends beyond crop production to encompass aspects like soil health, food processing, marketing, and value addition. Integrated approaches address the entirety of the food supply chain.
• Environmental Considerations: Undertaking efforts to alleviate the adverse environmental impacts linked to modern agriculture, such as soil erosion, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainable practices strive to curtail these effects.
• Adaptation to Climate Change: In response to the challenges posed by climate change, Green Revolution 2.0 endeavors to develop crop varieties and practices resilient to changing weather patterns and extremes.

Reference: The Indian Express

Related blogs….

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Question: What were the primary objectives of the Green Revolution in India, and how did it impact the country’s food production?

Answer: The Green Revolution aimed to achieve food self-reliance, enhance farmers’ income, and modernize agriculture. It significantly increased food production and made India self-sufficient in grains.

2. Question: Discuss the environmental challenges brought about by the Green Revolution and how Green Revolution 2.0 aims to address them.

Answer: The Green Revolution led to environmental issues like soil erosion and pesticide use. Green Revolution 2.0 focuses on sustainability and environmentally friendly practices.

3. Question: How can Green Revolution 2.0 contribute to enhancing agricultural resilience in the face of climate change and evolving socio-economic conditions?

Answer: Green Revolution 2.0 emphasizes biotechnology, precision agriculture, sustainability, and crop diversification to make agriculture more adaptable to changing circumstances.

4. Question: What are the key features of Green Revolution 2.0, and how do they differ from the initial Green Revolution?

Answer: Green Revolution 2.0 includes biotechnology, precision agriculture, sustainability, diversification, and a holistic approach, focusing on environmental considerations and climate change adaptation.

5. Question: Explain the concept of precision agriculture and its significance in modern farming.

Answer: Precision agriculture utilizes technology like GPS and data-driven decision-making to optimize resource use, reduce wastage, and enhance farming efficiency. It’s crucial for sustainable agriculture and improved productivity.

GS Related Practices Questions… 

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Green Revolution, White Revolution and Blue Revolution

The green revolution changes the course of Indian History since Independence. India got independence on 15 August 1947. At the time of independence, India faced partition and saw huge violence. After the departure of the British, India was lacking at many points, and most important of them was Food Crisis. To overcome that shortage, the Indian government initiated a new process for increasing crop production, those processes are termed as Green Revolution.

Green Revolution

In 1967-68 under the guidance of M.S. Swaminathan who is known as the father of the Green Revolution in India. Note Globally, Green Revolution was started with the development of Dwarf wheat, an HYV developed by the agricultural scientist Norman Borough who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for contribution to World Food Severity in 1970.

Pre-conditions before the introduction of Green Revolution

The 2 nd & 3 rd Five Year Plan had over-emphasized the industrialization of the Indian economy. The rural and agricultural sector was stagnant. Meanwhile, India had suffered from successive draught(S) in 1964-65 and 1965-66. India was forced to buy food grains from the international market, especially through PL-480 [Public Law-480]. It was the United States Of America’s Fodd Aid Programme to influence the ‘foreign’ & domestic policies of developing countries.

Objectives of the Green Revolution

• Improving the production and productivity of food.
• Developing food security and self-reliance concerning food production.
• Improving income, employment & wages.
• Improving rural infrastructure & rural development.

Second Generation Green Revolution

The 2 nd Green Revolution was planned to sustain agricultural production & productivity through the conservation of natural and environmental resources most importantly through Soil & Water Conservation. The important components of the Second Generation Green revolution are:

• Crop diversification
• Development of Forest cover & Grasslands
• Dairy Farming
• Horticulture

In those regions which have experienced success in the Green Revolution. Expansion of the Green Revolution beyond traditional regions like towards East and drought-prone regions through assured water supply and modernization of agriculture. Conservation of soil and water resources through complimenting chemical-based agriculture with organic agriculture like the use of Compost, Vermi-Compost, Bio-Fertilizers, Bio-Insecticides & Pesticides.

Use of water and soil resources to be according to their potentialities. Thus, crop combinations and agricultural activities are selected and introduced based on the carrying capacity of soil and water resources. For example, the introduction of Horticulture in Northern European Hills as are alternative to Jhum Cultivation and introduction of cultivation of Oilseeds, Pulses, Millets, Horticulture, and Forestry in Semi-dry and dry regions.

The strategy of Implementation: The program was flagged off by ICAR. The program was implemented through the introduction of the following four modern inputs for crop production, improved seeds, assured water supply, chemical fertilizers, insecticides & pesticides, and machines. These four inputs are introduced together. This is why the Green Revolution is also called Package Technology.

Achievements of the Green Revolution: India is now the 2 nd largest producer of rice & wheat in the world. Now India mountains food security with large production and large buffer stock. There has been an improvement in the income of farmers, employment levels, and wages. Green Revolution has supported rural infrastructure, rural development, urbanization, and industrialization. The entire industrialization and urbanization of the NCR region have been supported by the rural & agriculture prosperity of Punjab, Haryana, and Western, U.P.

Problem Areas of Green Revolution:

The green revolution is criticized based on economic limitations and environmental costs.

Economic limitations: success is limited in terms of crops, in terms of geographical location and sections of farmers.

• Limitations In Terms Of Crops: Green Revolution is advantageous to wheat, rice & cotton. Production of crops like jowar, bajra, ragi, and pulses is stagnated. These are in fact rainfed crops. Whenever irrigation is not facilitated, they suffer.
• Geographical Limitation: The success of the Green Revolution is limited to PUNJAB, HARYANA, WEST UP, and Coastal regions which have assured water supply through irrigation. It is a contributing factor to regional imbalances.
• Limitations Due To Section of Farmers: Green revolution has been mainly beneficial to the rich famous at the cost of subsidies provided by the government. It is a source of inter-personal inequality in the villages.
• Environmental Cost: Green Revolution has been responsible for deforestation, overuse of chemical fertilizers, insecticides & pesticides, water pollution, water lugging in lowlands due to leakage from canals, soil pollution, overuse of soil & water resources, and the problem of soil alkalinity & salinity (especially in Punjab, Haryana, North Rajasthan & West U.P)

White Revolution

This was introduced in 1970 by Verghese Kurien. He is known as the Father of the White Revolution. The objective of this revolution was improving milk production & productivity, improving per capita per day availability of milk, creation of additional employment and income, and improving rural infrastructure and development.

Strategy & Implementation

NDDB (National Dairy Development Board): The Programme was implemented through Operation Flood. Cooperatives like AMUL (Anand Milk Union Limited) were established. The achievements of the White Revolution were; India is the largest producer of milk and per capita per day availability of milk is now more than 280 grams/person/day. Doing development is a contributing factor in the rural development of states like Gujarat, Punjab, and Haryana. India is now an exporter of solid milk and milk products.

Problems Areas of White Revolution

The supply of pastures/grosses/fodder is directly connected to milk production. The supply of pastures is dependent on the performance of monsoon. During flood and drought milk supply is reduced, the price of milk is increased. Per capita per day production of milk in India is poor as breeds of milch animals are inferior in India.

The climate of India is hot and humid. Epidemics are common and health infrastructure is poor. Rural infrastructure is poor. Collection and transportation of milk require all-weather roads in rural areas. Collection and transportation is difficult especially during disturbed weather like heavy rainfall, cyclones, floods, etc

Blue Revolution

Introduction: It was started in 1970. Blue Revolution, the Neel Kranti Mission has the vision to achieve economic prosperity of the country and the fishers and fish farmers as well as contribute towards food and nutritional security through full potential utilization of water resources for fisheries development in a sustainable manner, keeping in view the bio-security and environmental concerns.

Objectives of the Blue Revolution

• To improve fish production and productivity
• Realization of production of fish through inland fishing
• Improving per capita per day availability of protein
• Additional employment and income creation.

National Fish Farm Development Agency was established. The program was implanted through extending the following biotechnology and financial inputs to fish farmers and fishermen:

• Fast Growing varieties of fish
• Improved nets
• Mechanized boats and trawlers
• Financial support for cooling, refrigeration & packaging facilities to improve the processing and marketing of fish and fish products.

Achievements

• India is now the 3 rd largest producer of fish after China and Japan.
• In terms of inland fishing, India is the 2 nd largest producer after China.
• Now the contribution of inland fishing is more than marine fishing.
• India is now an exporter of fish and fish products.
• Marine export is the largest sector of export in the agriculture and allied sector.

Problem Areas

Natural hazards like drought, flood, cyclones, tsunami adversely affect fish production. Growing water pollution is a major concern. It is adversely affecting fish and fish production in ponds, lakes, rivers, and coastal regions. Rural infrastructure is a poor lack of electricity and power is a major hindrance in refrigeration and packaging of fish and fish products. It adversely affects income and employment in rural areas. The fish market is highly localized. In the case of surplus production, wastages are high.

Green Revolution Essay for Students and Children

Green revolution essay.

Green Revolution is actually the process of increasing agricultural production by using modern machines and techniques. It was a scientific research-based technology initiative performed between 1950 and the late 1960s, that increased agricultural production worldwide, particularly in the developing world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s. It used HYV seeds, increased use of fertilizer and more technical methods of irrigation to increase the production of food grains.

Green Revolution in India

In India Green Revolution commenced in the early 1960s that led to an increase in food grain production , especially in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. Major milestones in this undertaking were the development of high-yielding varieties of wheat. The Green revolution is revolutionary in character due to the introduction of new technology, new ideas, the new application of inputs like HYV seeds, fertilizers, irrigation water, pesticides, etc. As all these were brought suddenly and spread quickly to attain dramatic results thus it is termed as a revolution in green agriculture.

Statistical Results

A record grain output in 1978-79 around 131 million tons occurred due to the Green Revolution. Hence, it made India as one of the world’s biggest agricultural producer. In India Green Revolution recorded a high level of success. India also became an exporter of food grains around that time.

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Economic Results

Crop areas under this project needed more water, more fertilizers , more pesticides, and certain other chemicals. This increased the growth of the local manufacturing sector. Increased industrial growth created new jobs and contributed to the country’s GDP . The increase in irrigation created the need for new dams to harness monsoon water. The stored water was used to create hydro-electric power. All of this resulted in industrial growth, created jobs and improved the quality of life of the people in villages.

Sociological Results

This new technology used frequent application of water, fertilizers, insecticides , larger volumes of transportation, electricity, etc. Not only the agricultural workers but also industrial workers got plenty of jobs because of the creation of facilities such as factories, hydro-electric power stations, etc. to back up the revolution.

Political Results

One of the most important factors that made Mrs. Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) and her party the Indian National Congress, a very powerful political force in India is this Green Revolution. India transformed itself from a starving nation to an exporter of food. This gave India admiration and appreciation from all over the world, especially from the Third world country.

Disadvantages of the Green Revolution

The negative social effect of the Revolution was also soon visible. Disparities in income have been widened by these innovations in agriculture. Rich landlords have control over the agricultural input and improved chemical fertilizers. The worst part is that the poor farmers found themselves handicapped by small farms of land and inadequate water supply. With complete agricultural techniques and inputs, the Green revaluation tended to have its most concentrated application on large farms.

As a concentration of the new technology to large farms, the Inequalities have further Increased. The poor farmers have been adversely affected by a growing tendency among the rich farmers to reclaim land previously leased out under tenancy agreement, which has been made profitable by higher returns from new technology.

The poor and backward class of farmers has been increasingly pushed into the rank of the landless laborer. A drastic increase in a higher level of rent with land value soaring. Also because of excessive use of fertilizers soil started to become alkaline or acidic depending upon the nature of the fertilizer used.

India has made a huge achievement in term of the Green Revolution, as it has provided an unprecedented level of food security. It has pulled a large number of poor people out of poverty and helped many non-poor people avoid the poverty and hunger they would have experienced had it not taken place. This revolution has saved over a billion people all over the world from famine.

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Revisiting the Impacts of the Green Revolution in India

Introduction

It was 1947. India had gained its freedom from British rule, but like many countries worldwide in the aftermath of World War II, the new nation was experiencing severe food shortages. The war-induced famine in Bengal in 1943 had earlier resulted in the death of between 1.5 and 3 million people. In 1947, the country’s food supply was again disrupted as the agrarian state of Punjab in northwestern India was divided by the agreement creating the new state of Pakistan. This territorial division also left Punjab without any of its primary agricultural research facilities, as the Agricultural College and Research Institute at Lyallpur, Punjab, was now located in Pakistan. To help to fill the supply gap it now confronted, India relied on food imports from the United States.

In fact, throughout much of the Cold War era, then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi (1966-1984) “hoped” for USA food aid without openly admitting to doing so. India faced two severe droughts in 1964-65 and 1965-66, leading to shortages of food once more. Those events resulted in India receiving 5 million tons of wheat aid from the U.S. Food for Aid Program. Overall, India received American aid in the form of concessional food sales totaling 10 billion dollars between 1950-1971 to purchase 50 million tons of emergency food from the United States. The government of India expected to have to import an estimated 10 million tons of cereal grains per year by the 1980s to feed its growing population and it did not then have an overarching plan to address the issue.

However, the story was different in the small northwestern Indian state of Punjab. The name Punjab is derived etymologically from the Persian words panj (five) and āb (waters), meaning "the land of five rivers." Punjab occupied about 2% of India's land area following the 1947 partition that created Pakistan. After rebuilding its economy following its division, Punjab emerged as one of the wealthiest states in India. Blessed with natural surface water resources, as its name suggests, and having been willing to undertake fundamental institutional and land reforms after independence, the state’s government also worked to develop irrigation systems, electric power resources, a foundation of agricultural research and extension and a solid cooperative credit structure for its population. During a period when India overall was struggling to meet the food needs of its citizenry, the state of Punjab recorded a 4.6% growth rate in agricultural production between 1950-1964 (before the Green Revolution) and became more than self-reliant in fulfilling the needs of its population as a result (Bhalla et al., 1990). The nation farmers were ready to assist when the opportunity presented itself do so in the form of the Green Revolution.

The Green Revolution Era

In April of 1969, 16 leaders from the world's major foreign assistance agencies and eight scientific food production consultants met at the conference center at Villa Serbelloni, Italy to devise a strategy to feed the world's hungry through science, rather than food aid (Hardin 2008). The government of India selected Punjab to receive a Green Revolution support "package" recommended by the conference because of the state’s track record of working effectively to improve its agricultural production. One example of that innovation had occurred in the mid-1960s before the Green Revolution.  India imported 18,000 tons of dwarf wheat seeds from Mexico in 1966. Punjab seized the initiative in transporting its share of that shipment from their port of arrival via trucks to ensure timely arrival, while other states awaited trains for transport. Meanwhile, the state’s Corrections Department arranged for prisoners to prepare an adequate number of 10kg bags to distribute the new seeds to farmers when they arrived in Punjab. This effort, in concert with the state’s previous initiatives to ensure adequate support of its growers, persuaded the Indian central government that Punjab possessed the political, social and economic wherewithal to accept and make productive use of Green Revolution technology.

And so began the tale of India's journey toward agricultural self-reliance. The early years of the Green Revolution required that Punjab’s farmers replace indigenous seeds with new high yielding varieties (HYV). Those varietals absorbed higher levels of nitrogen than their native counterparts and required synthetic fertilizers as a result. Punjabi farmers also began to employ pesticides in their fields to boost yields. Farmers likewise replaced traditional diverse crop choice strategies with wheat and rice monocropping. These steps resulted in a phenomenal rise in wheat and rice production in the state (Figure 1). Wheat yields increased by 2% per year from 1952-65 and rose again annually by an average of 2.6% during the 1968-85 period. Meanwhile, Punjab’s rice production increased from typical growth rates of 1.7% per year in the pre-Green Revolution era to 5.7% annually from 1967 to 1985.  Rice cultivation had traditionally been low in Punjab; the state produced 0.1 million metric tons in 1950 and 0.5 metric million tons in 1970, for example. But with the introduction of Green Revolution strategies, this value rose to 5.1 million tons per year by 1985 and it reached a record high of 12 million tons in 2017. Meanwhile, wheat output increased from 1 million tons in 1950 to 10.2 tons in 1985 (Bhalla et al. 1990). As a result, wheat and rice soon emerged as the two dominant crops grown in the state. The upshot of this growth in production during the 1970s was that Punjab virtually single-handedly delivered India its much-desired food independence. When the famine of 1975 struck, India was prepared to address it because its farmers were equipped with sturdy, disease-resistant, fast-growing, and highly responsive seeds to face that challenge. Indeed, India emerged as an exporter of food grains for the first time after independence during the 1970s (Figure 1).

As the Green Revolution proceeded, the net area irrigated as a percentage of total hectares in crops in Punjab increased from 49% in 1950/51 to a high of 81% in 1980/81. The net area irrigated by tube wells specifically, increased from 35% in 1950 to 57% of total planted area in 1980. By 1981, Punjab boasted one tube well for every 7 hectares of land in cultivation. Meanwhile, the state government electrified 100% of the state’s villages by 1980, compared to 47% for India’s rural communities as a whole. At the same time, the number of tractors in use by Punjabi farmers increased more than 11 times between 1966-1981.

Even before the Green Revolution, the national government had sought to ensure a favorable price environment and means to procure grain to help farmers invest in new technologies. To do so, India’s Parliament established the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in 1965. The FCI  guaranteed the purchase of farmer produced grains at a minimum support price (MSP). The government sought to use the MSP to protect the country’s growers against an excessive fall in crop prices during high production years.  During the 1970s, Punjab’s farmers benefitted from the fact that they produced more food than the population of their state could consume and the FCI ensured that they were adequately compensated for that production. By 1983/84, per capita income, for example, in Punjab was 3,560 rupees compared to the national average of 2,288 rupees (Bhalla et al. 1990). In short, by the early 1980s Punjab had fulfilled the goals of the founders of the Green Revolution and emerged as a champion in India’s war against hunger. Nevertheless, new challenges lay just around the corner.

More particularly, their narrow focus on "increasing production" came back to haunt Punjab’s farmers as they replaced heirloom seeds with new HYVs. The principal reason for the change was not inadequate indigenous seed yields, but their inability to withstand the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides (Sebby 2010). Farmers replaced the native crop varieties with expensive high yield and chemical and disease tolerant varieties. The new seeds/crops replaced thousands of locally indigenous species and the agricultural systems they had sustained (Shiva 1993). In addition to adopting widespread chemical fertilizer and pesticide use, Punjab’s farmers replaced their traditional sustainable farming practices, involving diverse cropping and leaving fields fallow periodically to allow for the regeneration of nutrients, with monocropping. As the national and state governments achieved their targets for food production and security and shifted their focus to other areas, however, Punjabi farmers found themselves coping with the aftermath of these changes.

Post-Green Revolution

After an initial period of success, the switch away from indigenous agricultural practices trapped farmers in high-interest loan cycles as they sought to pay for expensive artificially developed seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. Jodhka found in a study undertaken in the 2004-2006 period that 86% of farmers in Punjab incurred short-term loans to plant crops each year and 27% had recently borrowed to purchase farm machinery (Jodhka 2006). The irrigation systems needed to keep up production also demanded new wells to keep pace. This imperative also increased farmers’ capital costs in addition to exploiting groundwater resources. Punjab's Green Revolution farmers soon found themselves addressing high and continuing costs for seed, chemicals, fertilizer and irrigation as well as rapidly depleting soils.

The ecological impacts of the adoption of modern high production agriculture in Punjab proved far reaching indeed. While some rice had always been grown in the region, it was not a native crop in the state, and farmers soon found that this incompatible climatic crop was depleting their water resources. Where once farmers could drill 10 feet and find water for irrigation, in many areas of the state today they must drill to 200 feet to do so and that depth is increasing at a rate of about 3 feet per year (Mohan 2020). In addition, Punjab alone today consumes 20% of India’s pesticides each year. The human consequences of this turn are visible in numerous areas of the state, which have experienced a marked rise in cancer cases, stillborn babies and congenital disabilities (Zwerdling 2009).

By the early 2000s the state and its farmers faced a crisis. In fact, Swaminathan, the father of the Green Revolution in India, has argued that the practices adopted as a part of that movement may not have been the best approaches for the long run sustainability of farming in the nation generally and in Punjab more particularly (Kesavan and Swaminathan 2018). Instead, as noted above, the industrialization and monoculture strategies advocated by Green Revolution enthusiasts have resulted in low water tables and depleted soils in Punjab. These techniques initiated a cycle in which farmers spent more and more on chemicals and pesticides to offset the deepening negative impacts of monoculture cropping.

Today, residents of Punjab are turning their backs on genetically modified produce and also eschewing products from other regions produced with high quantities of pesticides and fertilizers. Nonetheless, overall returns, including the government’s MSP, which only supports commodities such as wheat and rice, have made it difficult for the state’s farmers to shift away from existing high input agricultural practices. Many Punjabi growers today feel trapped between securing a living and supporting a sustainable farming system (Jodhka 2006).

In retrospect it seems clear that after Punjab’s farmers worked as requested to increase production during a period of national need, their national and state governments should have helped them modify their high intensive practices when evidence mounted that those strategies were destroying the environment and trapping them in debt. However, that never happened.

In fact, by the 2000s, the MSP was no longer increasing at the same rate as it had previously. In the first decade of the 2000s, Punjab’s farmers delivered bumper crops and the heaps of grain could be seen in farmers’ markets across the state. But the FCI now declined to buy needed quantities from those growers, citing “quality” concerns. Farmers were left with no choice but to sell their harvest at a price lower than the MSP nominally supported. This situation, which has continued, has resulted in at least 7000 suicides among farmers since 2000 in Punjab.  Some observers have argued that the actual number may be three times this government-issued figure (Singh 2018).

This mounting economic and social crisis arose in major part due to a change in government priorities once the nation achieved food security. In the 1990s, Indian leaders began to emphasize the need to create a "new economy" and both the national and state governments have focused their primary energies on information technology and urban consumers since (Jodhka 2006). Nonetheless, aware of this deepening predicament, the newly elected Indian government (in 2004) formed the National Commission on Farmers (NCF) chaired by Swaminathan in November 2004 to address the causes of farmer distress in the nation. In its 5-part report, the Commission suggested a comprehensive national policy to support the nation’s farmers (Sanyal 2006). The report focused on land reforms, investments in surface water systems, adoption of groundwater recharge schemes and promotion of conservation farming to preserve soil health and water quality and quantity. The report also emphasized the need to reduce the interest rate for crop loans, initiate a comprehensive crop insurance scheme, increase the MSP by at least 50% of the weight cost of production and extend the price support program to crops other than wheat and rice. However, 16 years after its publication, vigorous debate continues concerning whether the government has taken sufficient steps to implement its provisions.

What Does the Future Hold?

The Indian government issued three new farm ordinances on June 5, 2020 (they became law on September 24, 2020) amid the COVID-19 crisis. The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020, the Farmers Empowerment and Protection Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020 (Singh, Rosmann and Bailey, 2020). These laws have resulted in widespread farmer protests against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of India. Protestors have called these ordinances a "death warrant for farmers" because together, they argue, they deprive growers of the laws and agencies that had been in place to protect them. Contrary to the 2004 Commission report’s recommendations, these ordinances loosened rules concerning contract farming and public regulation of crop pricing and sales.

Historically, farmers sold their harvest at state government regulated markets under strictures aimed at safeguarding them from large retailers' exploitation. In contrast, the new ordinances allow farmers to sell their produce outside state markets. The legislative aim of this change was to create more competition and better pricing by encouraging additional private buyers. However, protesting farmers have argued that the ordinances embraced these changes without also ensuring adequate government price supports for their harvests. Growers fear that lifting regulation in this way without assuring adequate MSP support, will ultimately allow large companies a much greater, and largely negative in pricing terms, role in local agricultural markets. 

These ordinances also create a framework for contract farming in which large retailers could buy quantities of agricultural products for a pre-agreed price. However, farmers argue that they lack control and compensating knowledge when offered these contracts and that the ordinances do too little to protect their rights when disputes arise with such purchasers.  That is, contract farming shifts the power balance away from the farmer to companies. Another provision of recent policy changes removed cereal, beans, oilseeds, edible oils, onions and potatoes from the national government’s list of essential commodities. In other words, the government has now indicated that it will not regulate production and storage of these commodities. Many farmers and other critics of this change are now contending that it could lead to the monopolization of supply of these commodities by a limited number of corporate growers, which could then manipulate production to maximize their returns.  

It remains unclear why the national government enacted these changes despite large protests and opposition from the nation’s farmers. But part of the answer appears to lie in India’s ongoing dialogue with the World Trade Organization (WTO) concerning the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). The AoA is based on free trade in agriculture without barriers, and WTO views state support in the form of subsidies, including the MSP specifically, as a hindrance to achieving a free market agricultural economy in India.  

Punjab, often known as the “Granary of India,” made India self-sufficient in agricultural production, but in so doing, also lost its traditional form of agriculture and depleted its water resources and soils considerably. The distrust among farmers of the government has now risen to perhaps its highest level in the post-Green-Revolution era. Growers are in dire need of a plan focused on sustainable farming and soil and water reclamation plans and the Report of the National Commission on Farmers provided an excellent template for needed reforms. The Indian government, however, has chosen a different course in its recently passed policies. The new ordinances do not stress sustainable farming and contract farming looks likely only to increase stress on already stressed lands. As Wendell Berry has argued, “A good farmer who is dealing with the problem of soil erosion on an acre of ground has a sounder grasp of that problem and cares more about it and is probably doing more to solve it than any bureaucrat who is talking about it in general (Berry 1972). There is no doubt that existing government regulation needs an overhaul, but farmers are now insisting that power should remain with the government in any such changes and that new regulatory policies should address needed changes in farming practices. The more market-oriented approach of recent agricultural policy changes has thus far met with widespread popular outrage across India.  

Berry, Wendell.  “Think Little: Essays.” 1972. https://berrycenter.org/2017/03/26/think-little-wendell-berry/ .

Bhalla, G S, G K Chadha, S P Kashyap, and R K Sharma. 1990. “Agricultural growth and structural changes in the punjab economy: an input-output analysis centre for the study of regional development at jawaharlal nehru university.”

Hardin, Lowell S. 2008. “Meetings That Changed the World: Bellagio 1969: The Green Revolution.”  Nature . Nature Publishing Group. https://doi.org/10.1038/455470a .

Jodhka, Surinder S. 2006. “Beyond ‘Crises’: Rethinking Contemporary Punjab Agriculture.” Economic and Political Weekly. 2006.

Kesavan, P C, and M S Swaminathan. 2018. “Modern Technologies for Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security.”  REVIEW ARTICLES CURRENT SCIENCE . Vol. 115. http://www.fao.org/ag/portal/age/age-news/detail/ .

Mohan, Neeraj. 2020. “Breaking Wheat-Paddy Cycle a Must to Save Groundwater: CSSRI Study - Cities - Hindustan Times.” HIndustan Times. 2020. https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/breaking-wheat-paddy-cycle-a-must-to-save-groundwater-cssri-study/story-Dw2Zperrefw8WecQkrEriM.html .

Sanyal, Kaushiki. 2006. “Report Summary Swaminathan Committee on Farmers .” PRS Legislative Research. 2006. https://www.prsindia.org/sites/default/files/parliament_or_policy_pdfs/1242360972--final summary_pdf_0.pdf .

Sebby, Kathryn. 2010. “The Green Revolution of the 1960’s and Its Impact on Small The Green Revolution of the 1960’s and Its Impact on Small Farmers in India Farmers in India.” https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/envstudtheses .

Singh, KanwalRoop. 2018. “A Pattern of Farmer Suicides in Punjab: Unearthing the Green Revolution | KALW.” December 4, 2018. https://www.kalw.org/post/pattern-farmer-suicides-punjab-unearthing-green-revolution#stream/0.

Singh, Santosh K, Mark Rosmann, and Jeanne Bailey. 2020. “Government of India Issues Three Ordinances Ushering in Major Agricultural Market Reforms.”

Zwerdling, Daniel. 2009. “In Punjab , Crowding Onto The Cancer.”  NPR Publications , 2009. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103569390.

Laljeet Sangha (Lal) is a Ph.D. student in the Water Systems Lab within the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Lal received his BS from Punjab Agricultural University and MS from Auburn University, Alabama. His current research focuses on analyzing the future water quantity challenges in Virginia. Growing up in a small village in Punjab and an agriculturally oriented environment, he developed a keen interest in agriculture at a young age. He enjoys working with farmers and one day aspires to be the bridge between policymakers and farmers. In his free time, Lal enjoys reading traditional Punjabi literature, taking walks at the Duckpond and nature photography.

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Green Revolution: History, Components, Phases & Advantages

The Green Revolution refers to agricultural innovations and practices introduced in the 1960s and 1970s that significantly increased food production, particularly in developing countries like India. Its significance lies in its role in transforming agricultural practices, leading to food security, economic growth, and the reduction of hunger and poverty. This article aims to study in detail the various aspects of the Green Revolution, including its origins, components, phases, and impact on society and the environment.

About Green Revolution

• Green Revolution refers to the multiple crop production growth in third-world countries based on modern inputs, technologies, HYVs (High-Yielding Varieties), farm mechanisation, and irrigation facilities.
• It reflects the agroeconomic situation of developing countries that aim for self-sufficiency in agriculture and mitigate food crises, hunger, famine, and related social evils.

History of Green Revolution in India

• The Green Revolution in India began in the mid-1960s as a response to severe food shortages and the threat of famine .
• It introduced high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat and rice, developed primarily in Mexico and the Philippines, to increase agricultural productivity.
• Led by Dr M.S. Swaminathan, known as the “Father of the Green Revolution in India,” and supported by agronomist Norman Borlaug, this movement focused on adopting advanced farming techniques, including chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and improved irrigation methods.
• The Green Revolution had its most significant impact in Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh. It transformed India into a food-self-sufficient nation but also led to challenges like soil degradation and water overuse.

Components of Green Revolution in India

The basis of the Green Revolution in India can be seen in the following points:

• They are dwarf varieties with dense canopies. Because they are very tender and fragile, they need more water, chemical fertilisers, and protection from pests and weeds.
• It also requires on-farm activities like soil preparation. It has a short generation period and leads to greater production in a short period.
• The short duration of growth means that land is used for the next crop, thus increasing cropping intensity.
• Irrigation Facilities – In 1960, India’s net irrigated area was only 30 million hectares, and extending irrigation to the rest of India was daunting.
• Credit and Financing – This requires an excellent rural credit and microfinancing network to support farmers’ needs.
• Commercialisation of Agriculture – The introduction of Minimum Support Prices for crops gave farmers an extra reason to grow crops.
• Farm Mechanization – It was required to increase crop production.
• On-Farm Development Activities – This included constructing agricultural channels, ploughing, levelling, and bunding.
• Off-Farm Development Activities – This focused on building roads, improving rural connectivity, and enhancing marketing, transportation, and communication.
• Use of Chemical Fertilizers – Due to soil nitrogen deficiency, NPK fertilizers were applied in a standard ratio of 4:2:1 , though the actual usage ratio was 8.2:4.2:1. The use of insecticides, pesticides, and weedicides was also common.
• Rural Electrification – This was essential for advancing farm mechanisation practices.
• Land Holding and Land Reforms – Landholding involved consolidating land, while land reforms included abolishing intermediaries, ending Zamindari, and implementing tenancy reforms.

Phases of Green Revolution in India

Phase i (1965-66 to 1980).

• India needed an immediate food supply and self-sufficiency in food grain production.
• This phase was both crop-specific and region-specific because the agriculture infrastructure was well-developed in Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh. Also, this region was free from natural hazards.
• This phase started with the Intensive Agriculture Development Program (IADP) and the Intensive Agriculture Area Programme (IAAP) on an experimental basis. Still, the main initiative was the HYV program during the Annual Plan of 1965-66.
• 1974, the Command Area Development Program reemphasised the Green Revolution in India.
• It was more centralised towards wheat production , which increased by 2.5 times in 5 years. This was termed the Green Revolution.
• This provided India with self-sufficiency in food grain production, and the incidences of malnutrition, famine, poverty, and starvation were mitigated. India was successful in coming out of the ‘Begging Bowl image’.

Phase II (1980-1991)

• Wet agriculture (mainly rice ) was targeted during the 6th and 7th five-year plans.
• During the first phase, rice production increased merely 1.5 times. Regions with more than 100 cm of rainfall, such as West Bengal, Bihar, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Assam, and coastal plains, were targeted.
• These plans met with partial success. The Krishna-Godavari delta and Cauvery basin yielded the coveted results.
• West Bengal also showed increased productivity, and in Bihar, Bhojpur experienced the fruits of the Green Revolution.
• However, the full potential of rice productivity was not realised due to institutional factors like land reforms, tenancy, etc.
• Land reforms should have been implemented in areas like UP, West Bengal, and Bihar, but they were not implemented at the right time.
• The traditional outlook of farmers was also a major limiting factor in the success of the Second phase of the Green Revolution.

Phase III (1991-2003)

• During the 8th and 9th five-year plans, dry land agriculture was targeted, and HYV was introduced into cotton, oilseeds, pulses, millets , etc. This met with partial success.
• However, it was unsuccessful except in the Narmada—Tapi doab, the Tungabhadra basin, and the Bhima—Krishna basin .
• After the 9th five-year plan ended, there was a paradigm shift in government policies.
• The ecological repercussions in the green revolution areas led to a relatively new concept of balanced Agriculture growth based on agricultural ecology, conservation methods, and sustainable development (10th five-year plan).
• The entire agricultural sector was addressed through what is known as the Rainbow Revolution.
• the Yellow Revolution for oilseeds,
• the Blue Revolution for fisheries,
• the White Revolution for dairy,
• the Brown Revolution for fertilisers, and
• the Silver Revolution for poultry.
• The 11th Plan shifted the focus towards sustainable agriculture and balanced growth, which is now termed inclusive growth.

Impact of Green Revolution in India

• The Green Revolution in India remained area- and crop-specific, culminating in regional disparities and increasing ethnic regionalism and consciousness.
• The economic advantages are perceptible, but the social disadvantages have been far more accentuated than the former.
• Capitalistic Farming led to marginal farmers selling land to large farmers who offered high prices, and thus, marginal farmers became labourers.
• Chemical fertilisers, pesticides, etc., have negatively affected the environment, ecology, soil, land, and water of North-western India.
• Thus, the Green Revolution in India was neither futuristic nor visionary and was unsustainable.

Economic Impact

• Interpersonal disparity emerged, leading to differences between people due to differences in earning at different places.
• Inter-regional disparity emerged due to differences in crop production, e.g., between West UP and East UP.
• For example, in 1960, Punjab and Bihar contributed the same in crop production, but due to the Green Revolution, there became a huge gap in crop production between the two states by 1990.
• Due to the increase in informal credit services, labourers and cultivators fell into the vicious cycle of debt traps.

Social Impact

• Increased rural landlessness, smaller marginal farmers were rendered landless and became agricultural labourers, which led to rural handicaps and health hazards.
• Greater unemployment due to mechanisation.
• Patriarchy was strengthened, female discrimination, female foeticide, and dowry increased.

Ecological Impact

• Soil degradation due to unscientific farming methods led to salinisation, alkalisation, formation of reh, Kallar, etc.
• Excessive use of irrigation has led to the issue of water logging in Green Revolution areas.
• The Green Revolution in India led to the toxication of soil from unwanted chemicals, which was caused by the excessive use of fertilisers.
• The Green Revolution in India increased water pollution, degrading water quality in rivers, tanks, and reservoirs.
• For example, excessive nitrogen in tanks and ponds leads to the growth of water hyacinths.
• For example, the excessive growth of water hyacinths kills the pond ecosystem because Sun rays and oxygenation decrease in lower water layers.
• The Green Revolution in India led to large-scale deforestation, especially in the Punjab, Tarai, and Bhabhar regions, where forests were cleared for agricultural purposes.
• The Green Revolution in India also led to disruption in agricultural ecology by crop monoculture (E.g., due to crop monoculture of wheat, many people say India has only a wheat revolution), and the use of pesticides, fertilisers, and weedicides.

Advantages of Green Revolution in India

• It was pertinent for a country with a perennial food crisis and population explosion.
• It led to the removal of hunger and famine.
• It gave rise to capitalistic farming practices in India.
• The surplus was generated in agriculture, which led to its commercialisation .
• It led to the development of rural infrastructure, which was a pre-condition for the Green Revolution.
• It made it self–sufficient in food grain production.
• The financial burden due to agriculture imports was reduced, which could now be channelled into various poverty alleviation programs, e.g., the Backward Area Development Programme, IRDP, Tribal Area Development Program, etc.
• The increase in wage rate led to the availability of cash to the farmers.
• Developing agro-processing and food-processing industries led to the industrialisation of tier II/III towns and a higher urbanisation rate.
• Population increases during the 1960s–80s required a higher food supply, which was only possible during the Green Revolution. The population increased from 33 crores to 66 crores within a 25-year gap.
• It led to the mechanisation of agriculture.
• Land reforms, consolidation of land holding, etc., were implemented in Green Revolution areas.
• Forward linkages refer to the industry’s supply of raw materials, while backward linkages refer to the industry’s demand for raw materials.

Disadvantages of Green Revolution in India

The disadvantages of the Green Revolution are as follows:

• While the Green Revolution significantly boosted agricultural productivity, it also led to several disadvantages .
• The heavy reliance on chemical fertilisers and pesticides degraded soil, reducing long-term soil fertility and leading to water pollution from runoff.
• The intensive use of water resources for irrigation contributed to groundwater depletion and the over-extraction of surface water, causing water scarcity in many regions.
• This led to increased inequality and economic disparities in rural areas.
• Finally, focusing on a few high-yield crops reduced biodiversity, making the agricultural system more vulnerable to pests and diseases.

The Green Revolution successfully achieved its primary goal of food sufficiency for India. With this significant milestone reached, the focus now shifts towards promoting sustainable agricultural patterns. By expanding the principles of the Green Revolution to cover a broader area and integrating practices that ensure long-term ecological balance, the initiative can evolve into what we term the Evergreen Revolution. This transformation aims to build on past successes while addressing contemporary challenges, ensuring productive and environmentally sustainable agricultural growth.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the green revolution.

The Green Revolution was a significant agricultural advancement starting in the 1960s, marked by the introduction of high-yield crop varieties, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and modern irrigation techniques.

Who is the father of Green Revolution?

Norman Borlaug is often called the “Father of the Green Revolution.”

Who started Green Revolution in India?

M. S. Swaminathan is often credited with leading the Green Revolution in India.

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Sugarcane Production in India: Cultivation, Distribution & Importance 

Back to the Land: The New Green Revolution

Anyone walking through Prashant Thakare’s freshly planted cotton field in the central Indian village of Takarakhede Shambhu could easily mistake a 65-ft.-wide (20 m) pool of murky water for, well, a pool of murky water. Yet that simple pond has transformed Thakare’s 22-acre (9 hectare) farm and, indeed, his life.

Thakare, like nearly all the farmers in this arid region of Vidarbha in the state of Maharashtra, is dependent on India’s annual monsoon to provide the water necessary to grow his cotton and soybeans. A failed monsoon meant disaster. Without the rain, the crops withered, and so did his primary source of income. Every year, all Thakare could do as the midyear planting season approached was wait and hope that the monsoon would deliver enough rain so he could support his family.

(Read “Hungry? How About Some Protein-Rich Cotton…”)

Then came the pond. The local government sent a construction team to Thakare’s farm last year to dig the 10-ft.-deep (3 m) pond, financing the $600 investment with funds from a new program to support local agriculture. Strategically located in the path of runoff rainwater, the pond — a common feature of rural-resource management — collects water from the monsoon rains that would otherwise have just been wasted. By capturing and storing rainwater, the pond helps to fill the farm’s wells. With a more reliable supply of water, Thakare’s productivity soared. Not only did he plant his usual summer cotton crop last year, but he also had enough water to grow an entirely new crop of sunflowers during the winter. The pond, he says, helped double his usual output of lentils as well. The added sales put an extra $1,000 in his pocket, which he saved as a nest egg for his two children. “I feel that my life is secure,” says Thakare, 36. “You don’t worry about what will happen in the future.”

With so much yield for so few bucks, it might seem surprising that Indian authorities hadn’t dug Thakare a pond long before now. But small farmers like Thakare have been neglected for much of the past three decades — and not only in India. Throughout the developing world, agriculture was the also-ran of the global economy. Governments equated economic progress with steel mills and shoe factories. While urban centers thrived and city dwellers got rich, hundreds of millions of farmers remained mired in poverty. Agriculture in many developing nations stagnated.

Now the farm is back. Fears of food shortages, a rethinking of antipoverty priorities and the crushing recession are causing a dramatic shift in world economic policy in favor of greater support for agriculture. Farmers like Thakare are being showered with more aid and investment by governments and development agencies than they have in decades in a renewed global quest for food security and rural development. The effort is still in its early stages, and some promises made have yet to be translated into real results. Some programs already in place may prove to be flawed. But a new commitment to agriculture by the global community is clearly emerging. The latest G-8 summit of the world’s largest economies, held in Italy in July, declared “there is an urgent need for decisive action to free humankind from hunger” and, citing the sector’s perennial neglect, pledged $20 billion for agriculture. “Since 2007, we have seen greater attention from world leaders on food security, in developed and developing countries alike,” says Kostas Stamoulis, director of agricultural-development economics at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. The resources being committed to farming “is putting-your-money-where-your-mouth-is kind of money.”

Seeds of Disaster The world’s farmers haven’t felt such love since the 1970s. Then, as food prices spiked, there was real concern that the world was facing a Malthusian crisis in which the planet was simply unable to produce enough grain and meat for an expanding population. Governments across the developing world and international aid organizations plowed investment into agriculture in the 1960s and 1970s, while technological breakthroughs, like high-yield strains of important food crops, boosted production. The result was the Green Revolution. Food production exploded. In India, for example, grain output more than doubled between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s.

But the Green Revolution became a victim of its own success. Food prices plunged by some 60% (when adjusted for inflation) by the late 1980s from their peak in the mid-1970s. Policymakers and aid workers turned their attention to the poor’s other pressing needs, such as health care and education. Farming got starved of resources and investment. In 1979, 18% of official development aid worldwide was directed at agriculture; by 2004, that amount sank to 3.5%. “Agriculture lost its glitter,” says the FAO’s Stamoulis. “The world didn’t think that food was a major issue. There was plenty of food, at low prices.”

The years of neglect took their toll on the world’s farmers, laying the groundwork for a crisis. During the Green Revolution in India, for example, crop yields routinely grew at 4% to 6% a year; by the late 1980s, the annual increase had fallen to 2% or less. At the same time, demand for food increased. As consumers in high-growth giants such as China and India became wealthier, they began eating more meat, so grain once used for human consumption got diverted to beef up livestock. Making matters worse, land and resources also got reallocated to produce biofuels. Once voluminous reserves of grain evaporated; this year, they are at the lowest levels since the mid-1970s. By early 2008, panicked buying by importing countries and restrictions slapped on grain exports by some big producers helped drive prices up to heights not seen for three decades. Protests broke out across the emerging world; in Haiti, fierce food riots toppled the government. NEW LIMITS TO GROWTH REVIVE MALTHUSIAN FEARS, a Wall Street Journal headline screamed in March 2008.

Watch TIME’s video “Saving China’s Grasslands.”

Read “The World’s Growing Food-Price Crisis.”

The food crisis spurred global leaders into action. “There seems to be an awareness that [food security] is one of the fundamental issues in the world that has to be dealt with,” says Christopher Delgado, policy adviser on agriculture and rural development at the World Bank in Washington. In a July report, a committee of British parliamentarians called on their government to invest in agricultural research and encourage local farmers to grow more fruit and other produce. The U.S., which traditionally provisioned food aid from American grain surpluses to help needy nations, is moving toward investing in farm sectors around the globe to boost productivity. “If we can help countries become more productive for themselves, then they will be in a better position to feed their own people,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in June.

The New Green Revolution Africa, which missed out on the first Green Revolution due to poor policy and limited resources, is also witnessing the beginnings of real change. In Senegal, 2008 protests sparked by rising food prices scared the government into instituting a program to make the country of 12 million people less dependent on imported grain. Grandly named the Great Agricultural Offensive for Food and Abundance, or GOANA, policymakers aimed to boost local agricultural production by subsidizing seeds, doling out farm implements and speeding up irrigation investments. The program convinced Ngor Sarr, a subsistence farmer in the region of Fatick in western Senegal, and the other members of his agricultural cooperative to expand their paddy fields last year. Though the seeds he received through GOANA weren’t of top quality, leading to mediocre yields — a common problem with the program, critics contend — Sarr’s rice output increased enough to encourage him to join GOANA again this planting season. The new government scheme “gives us the chance to do something extra, to try and expand our fields, and that’s very good,” Sarr says.

(See pictures of a global food crisis.)

The renewed focus on the farm is being driven by more than fear. Development experts believe a new approach to farming is crucial in order to lift up the world’s remaining poor, 75% of whom live in rural areas. Swayed by the success of East Asia, the primary poverty-fighting method favored by many policymakers was to get farmers off their farms and into modern jobs in factories and urban centers. But that strategy has proven insufficient. Income levels in the countryside badly trail those in cities in many countries, while the FAO estimates that the number of poor going hungry in 2009 reached an all-time high at more than 1 billion. “The bottom of the pyramid really depends on agriculture,” says Suresh Babu, senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington. “There is no other way to bring them out of poverty except with agriculture.”

India is a salutary case study for its renewed commitment to agriculture — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for “another Green Revolution” in his Aug. 15 Independence Day speech — as well as for how much still needs to be done. In 2004 politicians in New Delhi got a wake-up call on the plight of the country’s farmers. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ran for re-election in 2004 with a campaign slogan of INDIA SHINING, aimed at capitalizing on the country’s astounding record of rapid growth. But India’s struggling farmers didn’t see much shining in their own lives, and voted the BJP out. The unacknowledged reality was that the farms hadn’t yet joined in India’s economic boom. While GDP grew on average 5.7% a year between the launch of India’s market reforms in 1991 and 2004, agriculture slumped along at just 2.9%. Indian farming had also become miserably inefficient. Each hectare of cultivated land in India produces half that grown in Thailand. “The government thought that after liberalization, agriculture would grow automatically, that money would go from industry” to the farms, says Shreenivas Khandewale, director of the R.S. Ruikar Institute of Labor and Socio-Cultural Studies in Nagpur. “But it didn’t come.”

Growth Model When the indian national congress took power in 2004, Singh changed course and began an intensive effort to improve the lot of the nation’s farmers. Between the 2003-04 and 2008-09 fiscal years, the central government’s budget for agriculture quadrupled. Government schemes built rural roads to help farmers get their produce to market, forgave some of their debts and raised minimum purchase prices on cotton, rice and other crops. In 2005, policymakers launched the Bharat Nirman program, aimed at providing electricity, housing and irrigation systems to the country’s farmers, and, a year later, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which promised at least 100 days of work each year for poor farming households, often on public-works projects to develop infrastructure in the countryside. In the latest federal budget, announced in July, funds allocated for the rural jobs scheme jumped 144% from the previous year to more than $8 billion — making it the largest social-welfare program in the budget — while funding for Bharat Nirman was boosted by 45%. “It was very clear to us that if you want inclusive growth, it is going to require a significant increase in the productivity of land,” says Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of India’s Planning Commission in New Delhi.

Perhaps no single region of India’s vast hinterland has received more concentrated government attention than Vidarbha. One of India’s more distressed farming regions, Vidarbha became infamous for its high rate of farmer suicides. The problem became so severe in 2006, when more than 1,250 took their lives, that Singh toured Vidarbha and announced a special $780 million development program for the area, which the locals refer to simply as “the package.”

See TIME’s photo-essay “From Farm to Fork.”

(See pictures of urban farming.)

Three years later, K.S. Mulay, a state agricultural officer based in the Vidarbha town of Amravati, proudly reads off a long list of the progress the government has made so far. Nearly $39 million has been spent subsidizing high-yield seeds, Mulay says, plus $24 million on developing fruit orchards and other pricey produce, and another $24 million on building micro-irrigation projects. As Mulay drives down narrow roads through Vidarbha’s cotton fields, he stops his jeep every few miles to show off the government’s handiwork. First, he marches up a muddy hillside to a small dam the government built to help farmers preserve monsoon rainwater — one of more than 9,000 constructed in the region over the past three years. Next he visits the farm of Bhiamrao Mahore, who received free orange-tree saplings from a state-funded nursery. Mahore hopes his oranges will bring more money than the cotton he had planted before. Next stop is a state-sponsored training session where scores of local farmers collect for a PowerPoint presentation on how best to protect crops during a drought. “We are trying to increase the income and productivity of the farmers,” Mulay says. “All the work cannot be done in three years. But it is a beginning.”

And, for now, just that. Some Indian economists criticize the government for spending too much on welfare programs, such as the job-guarantee scheme, and not enough on irrigation systems and other investments that could make farms more productive. “Giving a cow won’t help a farmer long-term,” says Paurnima Sawai, 42, a farmer in Takarakhede Shambhu village. “But money to build a dam is a long-term investment. For years, you get benefits from it.” With only 40% of its farmland irrigated, India’s entire economic boom is held hostage by the unpredictable monsoon. With much of India’s farming areas suffering from drought this year, the government will have a tough time meeting its economic-growth targets. In an August report, Goldman Sachs predicted that this year’s weak rains could cause agriculture to contract 2% this fiscal year, making the government’s 7% GDP-growth target look “a bit rich.” Even Thakare, with his pond, may not have enough water to plant his extra crops this year. Abusaleh Shariff, a senior fellow at IFPRI’s New Delhi office, argues that allocating money is only part of the government’s task. The farmers also need better training, technology and marketing opportunities. “Do we have any of these? Almost none,” Shariff says. “The government program needs to be improved, and we need to devote a lot more resources.”

(See pictures of urban farming around the world.)

Nature vs. Nurture Tulasidas mandase of bivara barsa village in Vidarbha couldn’t agree more. Though he has received aid from the government, Mandase, 38, complains that it hasn’t been the right kind. The state donated a metal plow and a pesticide sprayer, but neither worked. To get subsidized soybean seeds, he spends a full day traveling by bus to a nearby town. It often takes two or three trips, and, with bus fares costing him 60 per roundtrip, he wonders if the cheaper seeds are worth the effort. What he really requires, he says, is better infrastructure to make him less dependent on the monsoon. Mandase believes that he might need a deeper well and electricity to run a pump — investments he could never afford on this own. In lieu of that, Mandase, with the local monsoon spotty, can only pin his hopes on divine intervention. In late July, Mandase visited a Hindu temple near his village and offered a coconut to the gods. He then split it, left half on the altar and took the other home to eat. The puja , or religious rite, is meant to bring rain. “All I need is water,” Mandase says.

Kishor Tiwari believes the farmers require much more than that. The Nagpur-based activist, whose organization, the Vidarbha People’s Protest Forum, has championed the region’s cotton growers, says that the package has alleviated some of the farmers’ distress. But Tiwari says that more government intervention is needed to solve the real underlying problem: a global agricultural market rigged against the small tiller. While the costs of crucial inputs, like fertilizer, have been rising, global prices for cotton are being depressed to an artificially low level by U.S.-government subsidies for its cotton farmers — a one-two punch, he says, that makes profitable farming in Vidarbha practically impossible. “The input prices are set by someone else while the purchase prices are set by someone else,” Tiwari says. “That’s why the farmers are killing themselves.” He wants the Indian government to better defend its own farmers by providing heavier subsidies for cotton production, protection from imports, easier access to finance and price supports. “If the government forces the farmers to have better productivity, it should have an integrated approach that is devised to have more profitability,” he says.

Yet Tiwari’s protectionist approach could actually hurt farmers. The World Bank’s Delgado says that most projections show trade liberalization in agriculture would create significant increases in prices — as much as 20% for cotton and 7% for food grains. Not only would those gains increase the incentive for farmers to grow greater quantities of food, but they would also put more money in farmers’ pockets, creating a new source of global demand. But with World Trade Organization negotiations on agricultural trade stalled on the issue of subsidies, it seems unlikely that farmers in Vidarbha and elsewhere will see these benefits anytime soon.

Policymakers can’t afford to wait. The FAO forecasts that food production will need to double by 2050 in order to keep up with rising demand, a task that will require $30 billion of investment annually. “Governments are scrambling to fix some of the problems, but it will take time,” says Akmal Siddiq, a natural-resources economist at the Asian Development Bank in Manila. Farmers like Namdeo Sidam, 48, know that all too well. He, his wife and three sons live in a mud-walled shack in the fly-infested village of Marathwakadi in Vidarbha, and aside from a free plow, the government’s ample funds have yet to trickle his way. Sidam gets no subsidies for his seeds, no guaranteed rural work has been available in the area and no new water resources have been developed near his farm, nor did he get state help with his $350 debt. Government agricultural officials hardly ever visit the village, he says, and he appears uninformed about the new initiatives that might help him. He is still dependent on the cotton crop he grows on his small farm, supplemented by the wages his sons can earn in part-time jobs. “Not much has changed,” he laments. To make the new Green Revolution a reality, the global community still has much backbreaking farm work to do.

— with reporting by Nilanjana Bhowmick / New Delhi, Chengcheng Jiang / Beijing, Yuki Oda / Tokyo, Shashikant Sawant / Nagpur and Joost Van Egmond / Dakar

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• Review article
• Open access
• Published: 01 October 2019

The impact of the Green Revolution on indigenous crops of India

• Ann Raeboline Lincy Eliazer Nelson 1 ,
• Kavitha Ravichandran 1 &
• Usha Antony 1  

Journal of Ethnic Foods volume  6 , Article number:  8 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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The Green Revolution in India was initiated in the 1960s by introducing high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat to increase food production in order to alleviate hunger and poverty. Post-Green Revolution, the production of wheat and rice doubled due to initiatives of the government, but the production of other food crops such as indigenous rice varieties and millets declined. This led to the loss of distinct indigenous crops from cultivation and also caused extinction. This review deals with the impacts the Green Revolution had on the production of indigenous crops, its effects on society, environment, nutrition intake, and per capita availability of foods, and also the methods that can be implemented to revive the indigenous crops back into cultivation and carry the knowledge to the future generation forward.

Introduction

India holds the second-largest agricultural land in the world, with 20 agro-climatic regions and 157.35 million hectares of land under cultivation [ 1 ]. Thus, agriculture plays a vital role with 58% of rural households depending on it even though India is no longer an agrarian economy. A report by the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare estimates that the food grain production in India will be 279.51 million tonnes during the 2017–2018 crop year. Although India is self-sufficient in food production, its food production between 1947 and 1960 was so bad that there were risks for the occurrence of famine. Therefore, the Green Revolution was initiated in the 1960s in order to increase food production, alleviate extreme poverty and malnourishment in the country, and to feed millions. In spite of these measures, India has one quarter of the hungry population of the world with 195.9 million undernourished people lacking sufficient food to meet their daily nutritional requirements; 58.4% of children under the age of five suffer from anemia, while in the age group of 15–49, 53% of women and 22.7% of men are anemic; 23% of women and 20% of men are thin, and 21% of women and 19% of men are obese [ 2 , 3 ].

The major crops cultivated in the era preceding the Green Revolution were rice, millets, sorghum, wheat, maize, and barley [ 4 , 5 ], and the production of rice and millets were higher than the production of wheat, barley, and maize combined all together. But the production of millets has gone down, and the crops that were once consumed in every household became a fodder crop in just a few decades after the Green Revolution. Meanwhile, a number of traditional rice varieties consumed prior to the Green Revolution have become non-existent, and the availability of local rice varieties have decreased to 7000 and not all of these varieties are under cultivation. Thus, India has lost more than 1 lakh varieties of indigenous rice after the 1970s that took several thousand years to evolve [ 6 ]. This loss of species is mainly due to the focus given to the production of subsidized high-yielding hybrid crops and the emphasis of monoculture by the government.

The measures initiated by the government increased the production of rice, wheat, pulses, and other crops leading to the self-sufficiency of food in the country. But it also destroyed the diversified gene pool available. The productivity of the crops was increased by the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and groundwater resources. However, mismanagement and overuse of chemical fertilizers, pesticide, and lack of crop rotation caused the land to become infertile, and loss of groundwater became a common occurrence in agricultural areas. These impacts made the farmers even more miserable, due to the increased expenditure spend on the cultivation of crops to overcome these shortcomings.

This review focuses on the genesis of the Green Revolution and its impacts and effects on the production of indigenous crops, society, environment, nutrition intake, and per capita availability of foods. Furthermore, the methods that can be implemented to revive the indigenous crops back into cultivation and carry the knowledge to the future generation forward is also discussed in detail.

• Green Revolution

The word “Green Revolution” was coined by William S. Gaud of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1968, for the introduction of new technology and policies implemented in the developing nations with aids from industrialized nations between the 1940s and the 1960s to increase the production and yield of food crops [ 7 , 8 ]. Many high-yielding varieties (HYVs) were introduced as part of the Green Revolution to increase agricultural productivity. These genetically improved varieties of wheat and rice were developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), Mexico, and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines, respectively. The HYVs had 20% more grain than its earlier cultivars and were more responsive to the nitrogen fertilizers. The yield potential doubled due to the incorporation of several traits and specific genes for short stature in HYVs [ 9 , 10 ]. The incorporation of the gene responsible for photo-insensitivity in rice and wheat enabled cultivation possible throughout the year; regardless of day length of the region, it was cultivated [ 11 , 12 ]. Furthermore, the reduced cropping period increased the cropping intensity to 2–3 crops per year. For instance, the newly introduced IR-8 took 130 days to mature, and the varieties later developed such as IR-72 took 100 days to mature while the traditional rice cultivars took 150 to 180 days to mature [ 9 ]. The period between 1960 and 1985 saw the doubling of yield per hectare, total productivity, and total food production in developing countries [ 7 ]. Accordingly, the global production of cereals increased by 174% between 1950 and 1990 while the global population increased by 110% [ 13 ]. The increased production of cereals enabled the nations to feed their growing population and averting the Malthusian scenario predicted in the 1960s [ 14 , 15 ].

When India became independent in 1947, 90% of its population lived in 600,000 villages depending mainly on agriculture for their subsistence. For a few centuries, Indian agriculture remained unchanged without any technological changes in agricultural practices [ 16 ]. The technologies employed in agriculture were the seeds cultivated by the farmers having a genetic makeup that went back thousands of years and the involvement of wooden plows, waterwheels, and bullock carts, along with the agricultural practices driven by the energy provided by animals and humans. Therefore, failure of the agriculture sector to meet the demands of India after 1947 until 1965 reflected negatively in the growth of the industrial sector. The lack of proper technological change and land reforms combined with droughts brought India to the verge of massive famine in the mid-1960s. However, this situation was averted by massive shipments of subsidized food grains mainly wheat by the USA. This measure, in turn, depleted the reserves of the nation. So, in order to save the reserves and to increase the productivity of cereals, all the stakeholders and donor agencies decided to induce changes in agricultural technology and practices [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ].

The HYVs of rice suitable for cultivation in tropical climatic conditions of South Asia were developed by the IRRI in the 1960s, based on the genetic materials drawn from China, Taiwan, and Indonesia. The most famous rice variety introduced as a part of the Green Revolution in India was IR-8. It was developed based on experience in developing the Norin variety of Japan and Ponlai variety of Taiwan. IR-8 was short, stiff strawed, and highly responsive to the fertilizers. In India, the yield of IR-8 was 5–10 t per hectare [ 8 , 21 ].

Semi-dwarf wheat varieties developed in Japan in the 1800s were used to develop the HYVs of wheat. The two varieties namely Akakomugi and Daruma of Japan were used for the international breeding programs of wheat [ 22 ]. Norin 10 was developed by crossing Daruma and native American varieties. In 1948, the US scientists crossed Norin 10 with Brevor, a native American variety to give rise to Norin-Brevor cross. This cross was taken to CIMMYT, Mexico, in 1954; there several HYVs of wheat were developed by Norman Borlaug and others, and these varieties were transferred to India in the 1960s [ 8 , 21 ].

The HYVs of wheat and rice were tested by the Indian scientists in 1962 and 1964 respectively. Later, these tested varieties were introduced throughout the nation during the crop year of 1965–1966 [ 20 , 23 ]. Thus, the Green Revolution involved the use of HYVs of wheat and rice and adoption of new agricultural practices involving the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, tractors, controlled water supply to crops, mechanical threshers, and pumps [ 19 , 24 ]. The combination of these techniques was commonly termed as “high-yielding variety technology (HYVT).” This technology was responsible for the increased growth rate of food-grain output from 2.4% per annum before 1965 to 3.5% after 1965. Initially, the major increase in food production was due to increased production of wheat that increased from 50 million tonnes in 1950 to 79 million tonnes in 1964 and later to 95.1 million tonnes in 1968 [ 24 ]. Since then, importing food grains has declined considerably.

The success of the Green Revolution in India in terms of crop yield is attributed to the government of India, international agricultural research institutions (IRRI and CIMMYT), multilateral and bilateral donor agencies (Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and USAID), and the farmers. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) meticulously executed the smooth transmission and distribution of new technology [ 19 , 25 ].

Ecological and societal impacts

In the past, Indian farms were small plots of land protected by windbreaks and tree cover. For centuries, the farmers employed several methods of organic husbandry, crop rotation, and leaving fields fallow for long periods of time in order to allow the soil to retain its nutrients. These practices lowered the demand on the land and maintained the equilibrium of soil [ 26 , 27 ].

Though the high-yielding monohybrid crops were introduced as a part of Green Revolution, the major problem with indigenous seeds was not the fact that they were not high yielding, but their inherent inability to withstand the chemical fertilizers used. On the contrary, new varieties were created to produce higher yields in conjunction with the use of chemical fertilizers and very intense irrigation [ 24 , 28 ]. The amount of chemical fertilizers used post-advent of the Green Revolution was quite high, and the increase in the consumption of chemical fertilizers for the cultivation of crop can be seen in Fig.  1 , which elucidates the steep increase in the use of fertilizers since 1981–1982. The overuse of chemical fertilizers to get high yield causes physical and chemical degradation of the soil by altering the natural microflora and increasing the alkalinity and salinity of the soil [ 30 ]. The excessive use of groundwater for irrigation depleted the water table in many parts of the country.

Consumption of fertilizers (N, P, and K) post-Green Revolution period [ 29 ]. The consumption of N, P, and K fertilizers increased steadily post-Green Revolution era. In particular, the period after 2000–2001 saw increased consumption of inorganic fertilizers, as the application of inorganic fertilizers influenced crop yield. Nitrogen-based fertilizers such as urea, ammonia, and nitrate were widely used. The uncontrolled use of these N, P, and K adversely affected the fertility of the soil and altered the microbiota of the soil

The newly introduced high-yielding seeds had a very narrow genetic base as compared to the indigenous species. The sole cultivation of monohybrid crops in the field by the farmers caused the removal of several indigenous species from cultivation [ 19 , 27 ]. Besides, the instability of the acquired traits in modern varieties such as high-yielding rice varieties, hybrids, and genetically engineered rice and the associated environmental degradation with its cultivation has caused a regular decline in yields and quality of food grains produced. For example, in the 1960s, the high yield was recorded in the newly introduced varieties IR-8 and ADT-27 in the Cauvery Delta, Tamil Nadu, and it was publicized as a conquest of high-yielding varieties over the low-yielding indigenous varieties. Although the yields were high initially, later it declined and disappeared from cultivation within few years of its introduction [ 31 ].

The major ecological and societal impacts of the Green Revolution can be summarized as follows: (1) loss of landraces that were indigenous to our country, (2) the loss of soil nutrients making it unproductive, (3) excessive use of pesticides increases the presence of its residues in foods and environment [ 24 , 32 , 33 , 34 ], (4) the farmers shift to unsustainable practices to obtain more yield, (5) increased rates of suicide among farmers, (6) unable to withstand the increasing expenses for farming and debts small farmers sold their lands to large commercial farmers, and (7) unable to withstand the food inflation and economic crisis the farmers left farming resorting to other occupation.

Impact on the cultivation of food grains

Post-Green Revolution, the area under cultivation increased from 97.32 million hectares in 1950 to 126.04 million hectares in 2014 [ 1 ]. The area under cultivation of coarse cereals decreased drastically from 37.67 million hectares to 25.67 million hectares since the 1950s. Likewise, the area under cultivation of sorghum decreased from 15.57 million hectares to 5.82 million hectares and that of pearl millet decreased from 9.02 million hectares to 7.89 million hectares [ 1 ]. But the area under the cultivation of rice, wheat, maize, and pulses increased from 30.81 million hectares to 43.95 million hectares, 9.75 million hectares to 31.19 million hectares, 3.18 million hectares to 9.43 million hectares, and 19.09 million hectares to 25.23 million hectares respectively [ 1 ]. The trends in the production of food grains influenced the availability and consumption of food grains in rural and urban households (Fig.  2 ).

The trend in the production of food crops in India from 1950 to 2017 (in million tonnes) [ 1 , 35 ]. The period after initiation of the Green Revolution by introducing mono-hybrid crops in India saw increased production of crops such as rice and wheat. But the production of millets decreased as the Green Revolution did not focus on the minor cereals to increase the food production of the country. The production of minor cereals and pulses were almost stationary while the production of rice and wheat in 2010–2017 surpassed its own production during 1950–1959 crop year by 4 and 11 times respectively

Impact on the availability and consumption of food grains

The per capita net availability of food grains increased over the years. The per capita net availability of rice increased from 58.0 kg/year in 1951 to 69.3 kg/year in 2017. The per capita net availability of rice was an all-time high in 1961. Similarly, the per capita net availability of wheat increased from 24.0 kg/year in 1951 to 70.1 kg/year in 2017. However, the per capita net availability of other cereal grains such as millets and pulses decreased over the years. This led to the change in the consumption pattern over the years and the shift in focus from the minor cereals and pulses to the major cereals, rice and wheat (Fig.  3 ).

The per capita net availability of food grains in India since 1951 [ 1 , 74 ]. The per capita net availability of food stands for the availability of amount (kg) of food per person per year in the nation. Figure  3 indicates an increase in the availability of rice and wheat per person and a decrease in the availability of pulses and millets per person after the Green Revolution. The decrease in the availability of millets and pulses per person is mainly due to the focus given to the production of rice and wheat alone during the Green Revolution. Although pulses did not lose the importance among the consumers like millets, per capita availability decreased from 22.1 kg/year in 1951 to 19.9 kg/year in 2017

The trends in percentage composition of consumer expenditure since 1987 (Table  1 ) reveal that cereals played a major role in both rural and urban households in 1987. But the composition of cereals on consumer expenditure decreased from 26.3 to 12.0% in rural households whereas the percentage in urban households dipped to 7.3 from 15.0%. The consumption of cereal substitutes such as coarse cereals and millets was stationary at 0.1% in rural households since 1987 but dipped to zero in urban areas after 1993–1994, only to be revived back to 0.1% in 2011–2012. Similarly, the consumption of pulses declined in both urban and rural households. Furthermore, it also indicates the shift in expenditure spend on cereals to non-food items in both rural and urban households with years; this may be attributed to the change in lifestyle.

Impact on nutrition

Millets are rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals. Singh et al. [ 36 ] report proteins in millets as a good source of essential amino acids, including histidine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, and valine, lacking lysine and threonine. They are also rich in methionine and cysteine that contains sulfur. Furthermore, millets are also a very good source of dietary minerals such as phosphorus, calcium, iron, and zinc, especially finger millet which contains nine- to tenfold higher calcium than others.

Rough rice contains more amount of riboflavin, thiamine, niacin, calcium, phosphorus, iron, and zinc than the milled (polished) rice (Table  2 ). The milled rice loses its nutrients during polishing, and the nutrient content present in it varies with the degree of polishing. Brown rice undergoes minimal processing, so it retains nutrients such as thiamine, niacin, riboflavin, calcium, phosphorus, and iron. Barnyard millet has the highest amount of crude fiber among the cereals. Furthermore, the colored rice varieties such as red rice and black rice are also a good source of protein and fat.

The consumption of major cereals such as rice and wheat along with pulses and decrease in the addition of coarse cereals, foods of animal origin, and fruits and vegetables in the diet lead to deficiency of micronutrients such as iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin A, folate, and riboflavin among the population causing anemia, keratomalacia, blindness, and infertility in severe cases. Surveys conducted by the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau and others also conclude the same that the Indian diets based on cereal pulse are qualitatively deficient in micronutrients [ 47 ].

Anemia due to iron deficiency is the most serious health issue among all other deficiency disorders. A report by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) states anemia due to iron deficiency may cause an impaired immune system (resistance to fight against infections), reduced reproductive health and related problems such as premature birth, low birth weight, and perinatal mortality, and affect cognitive and motor development and physical performance. According to the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), malnutrition and deficiency of micronutrients in India, particularly among women, children, and adolescents, need immediate attention [ 48 ].

Indigenous crops

The indigenous crops are popular and culturally known native varieties. Every region of the world has unique traditional foods that are widely consumed by a group of people, or by a particular community, for instance, consumption of black walnut, wild rice, pecan, palmetto berries, squash, succotash , sofkee , and fajitas by the native American tribes; Kyo - no - dento - yasai , ishiru , yamato persimmon, and katsura - uri by the Japanese; and kolo , kita , dabo , beso , genfo , chuko , tihlo , shorba , kinche , and injera by the Ethiopians [ 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. The traditional foods and cereal-based products that once occupied a part of the regular Indian diet are lost in time due to the emphasis on mono-cropping post-Green Revolution. The indigenous crops of India include several varieties of rice such as colored rice, aromatic rice, and medicinal rice varieties: millets, wheat, barley, and maize. The indigenous varieties of rice and millets are resistant to drought, salinity, and floods. For example, Dharical , Dular , and Tilak Kacheri of Eastern India are adaptable to different topology, climate, and soils [ 54 ]. The coarse cereals include sorghum, pearl millet, maize, barley, finger millet, and small millets like barnyard millet, foxtail millet, kodo millet, proso millet, and little millets [ 1 ].

The traditional rice cultivars have high nutrition than hybrid rice varieties [ 55 ]. They are a good source of minerals and vitamins such as niacin, thiamine, iron, riboflavin, vitamin D, calcium, and possess higher fiber. Furthermore, these cultivars possess several health benefits such as reducing the risk of developing type II diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases by lowering the glycemic and insulin responses [ 56 ].

Kumbhar et al. [ 57 ] report Tulshi tall , a landrace from Western Ghat zone of Maharastra, India, and Vikram , a landrace from Konkan region of Maharastra, showed moderate similarity in distinct differences in allelic combinations from other modern varieties. This report also suggests that landraces and local genotypes and Basmati rice of India have a long and independent history of evolution, which makes these indigenous species more distinct from the modern varieties. Landraces are unique and well adapted to agro-climatic conditions of its original area of cultivation. For example, Tulaipanji , an aromatic rice variety cultivated originally in cooler northern districts of West Bengal, India, lost its aroma when cultivated in the relatively warmer southern districts [ 58 ].

Jatu rice of Kullu valley, Himachal Pradesh, is prized for its aroma and taste. Matali and Lal Dhan of Himachal Pradesh are used for curing fever and reducing the elevated blood pressure. Kafalya is a popular red rice variety from the hills of Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, used in treating leucorrhoea and complications from abortion [ 59 ]. In Karnataka, Kari Kagga and Atikaya are used to regulate body heat and also in preparation of a tonic whereas Neelam Samba of Tamil Nadu is given to lactating mothers [ 60 ]. Maappillai Samba of Tamil Nadu is given to newly wedded groom to increase fertility [ 61 ]. Assam/North East parts of India use Assam black rice due to anti-cancer properties while its bran is used to soothe inflammation due to allergies, asthma, and other diseases. The varieties of Kerala such as Karinjan and Karimalakaran are rich in fiber and are known to reduce the risk of diabetes; Mundakan is consumed to increase the stamina; Vella chennellu and Chuvanna chennellu are consumed by pubescent, pregnant, and menopausal women, as it reduces problems associated with hormonal imbalances; Chuvanna kunjinelu is boiled with water and given to people who are suffering from epileptic fits; and Vellanavara and Rakthashali are consumed across India for its health benefits [ 62 ].

Sourirajan [ 63 ] reports on certain varieties of Tamil Nadu such as Kar arici and Vaikarai samba imparts strength, Karunguruvai acts as an antidiuretic, Puzhugu samba quenches intense thirst, Senchamba increases appetite, and Kodai samba reduces rheumatic pain. Jonga and Maharaji varieties of Bihar and Chhattisgarh are given to lactating mothers to increase lactation. Bora of Assam is used in the treatment of jaundice. Karhani of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand is used as a tonic in the treatment of epilepsy. Layacha is consumed by pregnant women to prevent unborn children from contracting Laicha disease. Gudna rice is used to treat gastric ailments [ 64 ]. These are some of the benefits of the few reported varieties, while many remain undocumented and unexplored. Foods such as roti, idli , dosai , puttu , aval , dhokla , khaman , selroti , adai , sez , kulcha , naan , and kurdi ; sweets such as adirasam , anarshe , and jalebi ; snacks such as murukku , and vadai ; and infant formulations are made from major cereals.

Millets are resistant to drought, pests, and diseases [ 65 ]. The growing season of millets is short, and the consumption of water for its cultivation is very less when compared to other cereals. Foods such as roti, dosai , and kuzh (porridge), snacks such as murukku , baby foods, ambali , wine, and health mix are made from millets. The polyphenols present in millets acts as antioxidant and boost immunity [ 66 ]. Lei et al. [ 67 ] report fermented millet products as a natural probiotic used for treating diarrhea in young children as the whole grain possesses prebiotic activity, increasing the population of good bacteria in the gut to promote digestion. Millets provide protection against obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. Though millets possess various health benefits, the anti-nutrients present in millets weaken the absorption of nutrients. However, the anti-nutrients present in millets can be inactivated or reduced by soaking, cooking, germination, malting, removal of the seed coat, and fermentation, among others.

The revival of indigenous crops

From this research, it is evident that necessary measures should be carried out to conserve the indigenous species of the nation and also to carry knowledge to the future generations by reviving the crops back into cultivation. The government of India may initiate the acquisition and management of germplasm of all indigenous varieties by the Indian National Genebank at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), New Delhi. Furthermore, the primary factors that contribute to the revival of indigenous crops include the passion of farmers, administrative measures initiated by the stakeholders, and the marketing strategies of vendors. Additionally, the knowledge about the health benefits of indigenous crops may also prevent its extinction and ensure the availability of these foods in local markets and the methods of cooking for future generations [ 52 ].

Nevertheless, the revival of indigenous crops is possible only when all the stakeholders define and bring these crops under a special category similar to the one initiated in Kyoto, Japan. In Kyoto Prefecture, the “native varieties” are categorized into “ Kyo - no - dento - yasai ,” and outside the prefecture, it is called “ Brand - Kyo - yasai ” [ 52 ]. Additionally, traditional food products of India may be collectively registered with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Food Heritages as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity similar to the registrations obtained for the washoku , a traditional dietary culture of Japan; the kimjang and kimchi of Republic of Korea; the Le repas gastronomique des Français (the gastronomic meal) of France; the Mediterranean diet; traditional Mexican foods; and the ceremonial keşkek of Turkey [ 68 ]. India may also adopt a geological indication (GI) for the traditional products like the one followed in the European Union and Japan [ 69 , 70 ] to provide the farmers with better access to the willingness of their consumers to try the traditional food products [ 71 ].

Advantages and challenges

The benefits of indigenous crops over the introduced HYVs include (1) cultivation of indigenous crops can make agriculture more genetically diverse and sustainable, (2) consumption of domestically cultivated indigenous crops can reduce the carbon footprints [ 72 ] and imports, (3) the indigenous crops are highly adapted to the climatic conditions of the land, and (4) consumption of indigenous foods contribute to food diversity and enrichment of diet with micronutrients provides health benefits due to the interactions between the inherited genes and food nutrients [ 73 ].

However, there may be few challenges in reviving indigenous species, which may include (1) farmers’ willingness in the propagation of indigenous varieties, (2) identifying the farmers with traditional knowledge of crop cultivation, (3) encouraging the farmers with large landholdings to cultivate indigenous crops, (4) awareness among the consumers and stakeholders about the ecological and health benefits of indigenous varieties, (5) support of the government to the farmers for the propagation of these crops in small and large scale, and (6) development of mechanization suitable for processing indigenous crops, as the existing machines are designed for the HYVs, and employing the same techniques for the processing of indigenous crops may lead to the loss of micronutrients and phytochemicals.

The measures discussed above may be initiated by the stakeholders to revive the indigenous crops, and it is imperative that food security must also ensure nutrition security of the nation. Thus, proper planning and intensive collaborative research work should be initiated by the stakeholders for the conservation of the traditional varieties and the inclusion of these varieties and practices into the food and nutrition security plans for the nation owing to their nutritional benefits.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable

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Eliazer Nelson, A.R.L., Ravichandran, K. & Antony, U. The impact of the Green Revolution on indigenous crops of India. J. Ethn. Food 6 , 8 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-019-0011-9

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Green Revolution in India​ ​ : A Case Study

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• Green Revolution Essay

Essay on Green Revolution

The Green Revolution is the way toward expanding rural creation by utilizing current machines and strategies. It was a logical exploration-based innovation activity performed in 1950 and the last part of the 1960s, that expanded rural creation around the world, especially in the creating scene, starting most extraordinarily in the last part of the 1960s. It utilized HYV seeds, expanded utilization of compost, and more specialized strategies for the water systems to build the creation of food grains. This Green Revolution Essay will help us understand the benefits and impacts of the movement in different sectors.

The Green Revolution in India started somewhere around the mid-1960sand it prompted an expansion in the creation of food grain, particularly in the areas of Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. Significant achievements of this included the improvement of high-yielding assortments of wheat. The Green transformation is said to be progressive due to the presentation of innovations, new thoughts, new ideas and the new use of information sources like HYV seeds, composts, water system water, pesticides, etc.

In India, the results of the Green Revolution are significant as India has an agricultural-based economy. It is, therefore, easier to understand the effects of the movement better through the results that we interpret from the statistics in India. 

Economic Results

Harvest zones required more water, more manures, more pesticides, and certain different synthetics. And this expanded the development of the nearby assembling division. Modern development made new openings and this added to the nation's GDP. The put-away water was utilized and this made up to make hydro-electric force. This brought about mechanical development, made new positions. The Green Revolution has significantly contributed to every country's GDP where it has taken place.

The Green Revolution has helped a lot of the needy people out of destitution, and have also helped numerous other individuals dodge the neediness and yearning they would have encountered had it not happened.

Green Revolution in India

The Green Revolution started in the mid-1960s that prompted an expansion in food grain creation, particularly in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. Significant achievements in this endeavour were the improvement of high-yielding assortments of wheat. The Green transformation is progressive because of the presentation of innovation, novel thoughts, the new use of information sources like HYV seeds, composts, water system water, pesticides, and so forth. As all these were brought out of nowhere and spread rapidly to accomplish sensational outcomes in this way, it is named as an upset in green agribusiness. The essay on Green Revolution provides details behind this movement and its significant outcomes along with the disadvantages faced by every country due to this movement. In India, these results are a bit more significant as India is an agricultural-based country by nature. Hence, we can understand the effects of the movement better through the results that we interpret from the statistics in India. 

Harvest zones under this task required more water, more manures, more pesticides, and certain different synthetics. This expanded the development of the nearby assembling division. Expanded modern development made new openings and added to the nation's GDP. The expansion in the water system made the requirement for new dams to bridle rainstorm water. The put-away water was utilized to make hydroelectric force. The entirety of this brought about mechanical development, made positions, and improved the personal satisfaction of the individuals in towns. The Green Revolution has significantly contributed to every country's GDP where it has taken place. 

Disadvantages

The negative social impact of the Revolution was likewise soon obvious. Variations in salary have been enlarged by these developments in agribusiness. Rich landowners have power over the agrarian info and improved compound composts. The most noticeably awful part is that the helpless ranchers ended up crippled by little homesteads of land and lacking water gracefully. With complete agrarian strategies and sources of info, the Green revolution would, in general, have its most focused application on huge ranches.

As a centralization of the innovation to enormous ranches, the Inequalities have additionally Increased. A developing inclination has antagonistically influenced the helpless ranchers among the rich ranchers to recover land recently rented out under-occupancy understanding, which has been made productive by more significant yields from an innovation.

Poor people and the lower class of farmers have been progressively driven into the position of the landless worker—an uncommon increment in a more elevated level of the lease with land esteem taking off. Additionally, because of extreme utilization of composts soil began to become soluble or acidic, relying on the idea of the manure utilized.

Short Paragraph on  Green Revolution

The essay of Green Revolution alludes to a critical increment in the volume of horticultural creation and efficiency through a selection of better quality seeds, substance manures, pesticides, and bug sprays, and guaranteed water system offices during a brief timeframe. During the mid-sixties, this HYV innovation was embraced in Indian farming to help with the creation of food grains.

This new agrarian improvement technique was first supported by the Ford Foundation, and it was specifically executed in 16 agronomically created regions. This program was first known as the Intensive Agricultural Development Program (IADP). The IADP was altered in the year 1964-65, and another plan Intensive Agricultural Area Program (IAAP) was actualized. The fundamental elements of the new methodology are: 

(I) High Yielding Variety seeds 

(ii) Chemical composts 

(iii) Pesticides 

(iv) Insecticides 

(v) Assured water system offices and 

(vi) Better social practices. 

The program has been impressively altered with the progression of time and now the dry territories and the bumpy zones have now been secured under the new farming technique. In this short paragraph on Green Revolution, we come to know about the principal methodologies used behind this movement.

The Green Revolution has pulled countless needy individuals out of destitution and helped numerous non-needy individuals dodge the neediness and yearning they would have encountered had it not occurred. This upset has spared over a billion people everywhere in the world from starvation.

FAQs on Green Revolution Essay

1. Define AGRA, with context to this essay?

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which was set up in 2006, is an African based foundation that puts the smallholder ranchers at the centre point of the developing economy of the mainland by changing the agribusiness from a small single business to a business that will flourish. This change is only possible through reasonable efficiency increments and allowance of inventive accounts and markets to accomplish the potential of agribusiness dependably to make it an alternative to youth work creation.

2. What are the advantages of the Green Revolution, according to this essay?

The harvest index was one progress that was made in plant advances due to the Green Revolution, which indicates the over the ground weight of the harvest. During the Revolution, plants with the biggest seeds were utilized to make the most creation conceivable. Following this cycle of specific rearing, the bigger the seeds were, the more grain could be developed with each harvest. The over the ground crops at that point lead to an expansion in photosynthate assignment for the yield itself. The yields had the option to photosynthesize more effectively by boosting the seed of the plant.

3. What is IADP?

The intensive Agricultural Development Program (IADP) was altered in the year 1964-65, and a new plan, the Intensive Agricultural Area Program (IAAP) was actualized. The main elements of this new methodology are: 

The High Yielding Variety seeds; 

The Chemical composts; 

The use of Pesticides; 

Use of Insecticides; 

Assured water system offices and 

Better social practices.  

This program was altered with, and according to the progression of time.

4. Mention some negative effects of the Green Revolution.

Negative effects are as follows:

There have been variations in salary by these developments in the agribusiness. The helpless ranchers ended up crippled by little homesteads of land and lacking water. With complete agrarian strategies and sources of information, the Green revolution would have its most focused application on huge ranches where the Inequalities have additionally Increased. Poor people and the lower class of farmers have been progressively driven into the position of the landless worker, an uncommon increment in a more elevated level of the lease with land esteem taking off. Due to the extreme utilization of compost, the soil began to become soluble or acidic, relying on the idea of the manure utilized.

5. Where can I get study notes on the Green Revolution essay?

Essay writing is important and it is also necessary to be able to practice some of the important questions and sample essays. The online portal, Vedantu.com offers important questions along with answers and other very helpful study material on essays of  The Green Revolution, which have been formulated in a  well structured, well researched, and easy to understand manner. These study materials and solutions are all important and are very easily accessible from Vedantu.com and can be downloaded for free. 

• Inside Development

Devex Dish: What India’s fodder shortage means for farmers

India’s cattle farmers are facing an unprecedented fodder shortage, mainly caused by climate change. Plus, African faith leaders demand “reparations” to Africa’s Green Revolution ahead of the Africa Food Systems Forum.

India’s cattle farmers are feeling the squeeze: An unprecedented fodder shortage  is making it prohibitively expensive for them to feed and maintain their cattle.

The main culprit is the rising impacts of climate change. Fodder production has been significantly reduced amid erratic weather patterns such as prolonged droughts and heat waves. That shortage has sent fodder costs skyrocketing  —  prices have nearly tripled in some regions  over the past two years.

Take Sheshrao Jadhav as an example. The dairy farmer in the west Indian state of Maharashtra had to sell 120 cattle over the past year, leaving him worried about how he will feed not just his remaining 230 animals, but his family. He and many of his neighbors are selling off their cattle at rock-bottom prices.

And the effects of the fodder shortage  could soon be felt by the rest of the world , too, as India is the world’s largest dairy milk producer.

“With climate models predicting more extreme weather events in the coming years, the fodder shortage highlights the urgent need for sustainable agricultural practices and climate-resilient policies in the world’s most populous nation,” writes Devex contributor Cheena Kapoor.

In addition to the climate crisis, the government points to the “shrinking of [the] area under cultivation due to urbanization, and diversion of land towards commercial crops, as well as the diversion of crop residues for other industrial uses.” These problems are compounded by  rising domestic demand for milk and dairy products  as India’s population grows.

Though India has plenty of quality land and seeds, another major issue is a lack of proper regional planning , according to Vijay Kumar Yadav, director at the Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research .

For rural farmers like Jadhav, help can’t come soon enough.

Read: Indian farmers distress-sell cattle amid unprecedented fodder shortage

ICYMI:   Amid climate change in the Horn of Africa, camels pose an opportunity

Catch you in Kigali

Next week more than 3,000 heads of state, ministers, business leaders, and global development experts will gather in Kigali, Rwanda, for the Africa Food Systems Forum , the continent’s largest agriculture conference.

The annual event — previously known as the Africa Green Revolution Forum — is expected to bring announcements  of big funding, and political and policy commitments aimed at accelerating the transformation of the continent’s food system. It is organized by AGRA , which in 2022 rebranded itself  from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

Dealmaking is a major feature of the event — last year’s investment pipeline brought $10.2 billion in national food systems investment opportunities , according to the 2023 AFS Forum report. Scheduled speakers  this year include former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition  Executive Director Lawrence Haddad, former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, and WHO  chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Each year, the forum attracts criticism from agroecology advocates who protest what they view as too much outside influence on African food and agriculture policies — particularly by AGRA, which they say has  squeezed out the alternative voices and approaches  such as agroecology in favor of a corporatized model of industrial agriculture.  

This year, African faith leaders, backed by civil society and farmer groups, have issued a public letter to agriculture donors  — specifically the Gates Foundation —  demanding that they pay “reparations” for past mistakes  by supporting agroecology, or a system of farming that is dependent on nature to produce food in a way that benefits the environment.

Will you be attending the forum next week in Kigali? If so, get in touch! My colleague David Njagi will be on the ground and would love to meet Dish readers.

Read:   African groups want ‘reparations’ for Green Revolution’s shortcomings

From our archives : Does AGRA’S new $550 million strategy address past failures?  (Pro)

+ Not yet a Devex Pro member?  Access all our exclusive reporting and analyses, data-driven funding insights, members-only events, and the world’s largest global development job board by starting a 15-day free trial today .

Wheat for it

Clues on how to prevent crop disease, build climate resilience, and reduce agricultural emissions might just be found in the genetic diversity of wild wheat varieties , according to a new study.

It reviewed the impact of various global efforts to use ancient and wild relative species  to increase genetic diversity in wheat varieties. And the benefits were many, Devex contributor Catherine Davison writes: Although only a small fraction of the genetic resources found in wild and ancient wheat varieties have been used in modern breeding programs so far, they have already helped to improve heat and drought tolerance , prevent the spread of disease, and increase productivity to an estimated $11 billion.

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Further, the cultivation of disease-resistant wheat varieties has reduced fungicide use by an estimated 1 billion liters since 2000, minimizing the amount of harmful agrochemicals entering the food chain , the study found. The research was led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center , or CIMMYT.

“These impacts were achieved with almost anecdotal exploration of these genetic resources, less than 10%” of the total available, said the study’s co-author Matthew Reynolds, head of wheat physiology at CIMMYT. “And we have these even worse problems looming, which we could almost certainly solve if we explore the rest of it.”

Though the study only looks at wheat, the implication is that other crops with wild or ancient ancestors that are still growing would benefit similarly.

Read: How ancient wild relatives of wheat could safeguard our food supply

Plus: Could ancient grains hold answers to Britain’s wheat crisis?

And don’t miss our deep dive: Cranking up the heat on climate-resilient crop research  

Chew on this

The World Food Programme is investigating two of its officials in Sudan  over charges of fraud and concealing relevant information . [ Reuters ]

‘The wells are salty’: How the invading ocean is contaminating Vanuatu’s water supply . [ The Guardian ]

The African Development Bank is investing $46 million to improve food security in South Sudan . [ Islamic Organization for Food Security ]

David Njagi contributed to this edition of Devex Dish.

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Expanding Data Center Colocation Services in Emerging Geographies and Seizing New Growth Opportunities

Transforming Digital Infrastructure with the Data Center Revolution

Data center colocation services in India are experiencing a series of changes fuelled by the rising demand for robust data storage and processing from hyperscale cloud providers, over-the-top (OTT) platforms, content providers, and artificial intelligence (AI) companies. This shift is accelerated by advancements in 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), the proliferation of smartphones, and favourable government policies.

To read on about lucrative growth opportunities in data center colocation services, click here .

As digital infrastructure becomes increasingly vital for businesses across industries, the following headwinds are reshaping the competitive landscape, prompting colocation providers to adapt with agility while focusing on service differentiation:

• Harnessing Disruptive Technologies: Technologies like AI, machine learning (ML), and big data analytics require substantial computing power/infrastructure, reduced latency, and real-time processing. This is increasing the pressure to invest in high-density racks, innovative designs, and edge architectures.
• Adapting to Transformative Megatrends: With growing awareness about environmental sustainability, the demand for energy-efficient and green data centers is rising. Consequently, providers feel the urgency to adopt sustainable practices, advanced cooling solutions, and renewable energy sources to reduce their carbon footprints.
• Combatting Competitive Intensity: The entry of domestic players like Yotta Infrastructure and Adani Group, along with global giants, is intensifying competition in the provider ecosystem. Coupled with limitations of land and power, this is driving the need for aggressive growth strategies to establish long-term competitive differentiation.

Amid these forces, a combination of technological innovation, customer-centricity, and a strong focus on security will prove to be essential for navigating industry complexities. The question that arises is – How will you identify and implement the right data center technologies and best practices to support your organization’s growth goals?

To delve into new prospects in the Indian data centers ecosystem, click here.

India’s Unique Vale Proposition for Data Center and Colocation Service Providers

India’s significance in the global data center industry is growing, making it an increasingly attractive destination for colocation services. By leveraging the country’s demographic dividend along with the following factors, global providers can effectively broaden their regional presence and strengthen their competitive positioning:

• Burgeoning Digital Economy: India boasts a massive and growing population with increasing internet penetration. Further, the rise of e-commerce, online education, and telehealth are intensifying demand for advanced infrastructure that facilitates digital transformation.
• Favorable Government Policies: Initiatives like Digital India and Make in India combined with data localization laws and incentive schemes for local infrastructure development are fostering an environment conducive to innovation and growth.
• Strategic Advantages: Lower real estate and labour costs, coupled with government incentives and subsidies are allowing providers the advantage of cost optimization, while maintaining high service standards. Additionally, the country’s growing fiber optic network and connectivity infrastructure are enhancing its appeal as a future data hub.

Are your strategists equipped to make the most of these advantages and capitalize on the growth opportunities accompanying them?  

Revealed: Emerging Opportunities in Indian Data Centers and Colocation Services

While challenges such as power reliability, infrastructure bottlenecks, and workforce shortages persist, the overall growth trajectory of India’s data center industry is undeniably positive. This is unleashing the following new prospects for providers to better differentiate themselves:

• Hyperscale Colocation Data Center Services: Harnessing the rise in demand from cloud migration, IT applications, OTT services, and data localization mandates by building scalable, high-capacity data centers with increased power densities.
• Comprehensive Edge Strategies: Since centralized data centers are less optimal for processing geographically dispersed data from different monitoring systems, providers can establish low-latency infrastructure and edge capabilities for smart city applications like autonomous traffic management, smart parking, and intelligent lighting systems.
• Sustainability and Green Energy: Leading new initiatives to design more energy-efficient facilities, improve power usage effectiveness (PUE) scores, and reduce carbon footprints, while leveraging AI to identify and address energy inefficiencies.

How will you strategize to take advantage of these growth opportunities while maximizing the return on investment (ROI) potential on your data center investments?

For implementation strategies to capitalize on these growth opportunities, click here .

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the growth pipeline company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class industry positioning in terms of innovation and leadership. The company’s ‘Growth Pipeline-as-a-Service’ provides corporate management teams with transformational strategies and best-practice models that catalyze growth opportunity generation, evaluation, and implementation. Let us coach you on your transformational journey, while we actively support you in fostering collaborative initiatives within the global data centers and colocation services ecosystem. This journey is fueled by four powerful components, ensuring your success in navigating dynamic business and industry landscapes.

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