Bajaj, JK Green Revolution

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GREEN REVOLUTION : A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

I . HISTORICA L BACKGRO UND

The history of modern agriculture in India begins in 1757. In that fatefu l year,

the Indians lost the Battle of PJassey to the East India Compa ny of the British

soldier-traders. As a consequence of the defeat, the revenue rights of one distric t

in Bengal— the 24-Pragannahs—-had to be ceded to the Company. The footh old

thus gained by the Britishers in the civil and revenue adm inistration of India

expanded rapidly. By 176 5, large territories of India, particularly in the provinces

of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, had come under the con trol of the Company—and

agriculture in India had become subje ct to the British adm inistration and its

modernising influences.

P r e - B r i t i sh pe r i od

Before this conq uest, a griculture in India w as a trad itiona l way of life. It was

no mere economic ac tivity. In the autonom ous Indian villages agriculture was the

basic life-ac tivity of the people.* Its major funct ion , if an integrated life activity

can at a l be analysed in terms of fu nctio ns, was to fulf il their life-needs. The

needs of the Governmen t, of the market, of the industry were a ll secondary to

that major funct ion,

This independence of the trad itional agriculture from external polit ical or econo-

mic control was achieved throug h a social organ ization that left the village largely

autonom ous. The obliga tion of the village to the external polit ical a uthority was

limited to the payment of a small proportion of the produce as revenue. On the

basis of the reven ue records of tho se tim es Dharampal (quo ted in Claude Alva res,

1979, p. 174-5 ) estimates that the propo rtion of the produce payable to the

external a uthority around 1750 was as sm all as 5 percent. At the time of Jehangir

this proportion w as even smaller— about 4 percent. Having met this ob ligation the

village was free to organize its ow n polit ica l and economic affairs. In these affairs

the village was so autonomous that wh o actually ruled at the centre was not of much

concern to the villagers. Marx (1853a ) quotes an officia l report of the House of

Commons to the effect that:

'...The inhabitants [of the villag e] gave themselves no trouble about the breaking

up and division of kingdom s; wh ile the village remains entire, they care not to wh at

power it is transfered, or to wh at sovereign it devolves; its internal economy

remains unchanged../

* An early British observer of Indian agriculture, Col. Alexander Walker, noted the

fol low ing about agr iculture in Malabar in 18 2 0 : ' In Malabar the knowledge of

Husban dry seems as ancien t as their History. It is the favo urite emp loyme nt of the

inhabitan ts. It is endeared to them by their mode of life, and the property

wh ich they possess in the soil. It is a theme for their writers ; it is sub ject on

which they delight to converse and with which all ranks profess to be acquainted... '

(Walker, 1820),

87

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W ithin the autonomous village , the cult ivator was quite independent. According

to the estimates quoted earlier, the cultiva tor paid perhaps another 25 percent of his

produce toward s various heads of revenue. A large part of this 2 5 percent how ever ,

wen t towards financing the religious, cultural, educational and economic activit ies of

the village . This share of the produce was in fact, often paid by the cultiva tor directly

to the individu als or institu tions responsible for the above-m entioned activities. The

polit ical aristocracy and the militia ended up receiving only 1.5 and 6.0 per cent respec-

tively of the gross produce. Having received its share of the produce the aristocracy

had no more rights on the land; in particular it had no right to separate the cultiva tor

from his piece of land. Land was not the private property of the aristocracy—a concept

yet to arrive in India

The polit ical-econom ic independence of the vil lage and the cult ivator was further

secured thro ugh the independence of the village from external ind ustrial and market

influence s. This independence does not mean that in the pre- Britis h India there was no

industry or no trade. In fact for the first hundred years of British contac t w it h India the

Britis h traders dealt only in the manufactured goods of India. Upto 175 7, they had to

actua lly imp ort silver and go ld into India to be able to buy the Indian m anufactures— the

Britain of that time had no manufactures to exchange w ith India (Claude Aivare s, 19 76 ).

Even in 1840 , Mon tgom ery Ma rtin, an early historian of the Britis h Empire cou ld insist

before a parliamentary enquiry that, 'I do not agree that India is an agricu ltural c ou ntr y;

India is as much a man ufacturing cou ntry as agr icultu ral;... her manufactures of various

descrip tions have existed fo r ages, and have never been able to be competed wit h any

nation wherev er fair play has been given to them ' (D utt R. P., 194 0, p 12 9-3 0).

Yet this vast manufacturing activity did not interfere w ith the autonomy of the vil lage

and the agriculturist. In fact this manufacturing activity was closely coordinated w ith

agriculture. Textile manufacture, the most im portant industrial a ctivity of pre-Brit ish

India, was carried out alm ost entirely by the ag ricultur ists in their free time . T his

close coordination between agriculture and manufacture, this 'domestic union of

agricultural and manufacturing pursuits', was in fact, as Marx (1853a) noted, the

piv ot of the village system. It was this un ion that ensured the autonomy o f the

villag e, by mak ing agricultur e free of the demands of an external industry or

market. That is why the spinning whee l (charkha) and the handloo m— the basic

tools of this union—became the symbols of the tradit ional Indian civ il ization of

independent cult ivators and autonomous villages, for both Gandhi and Marx .*

Whatever the differin g perceptions of Gandhi and Marx about the historical role

of the pre-British

1

Indian civil izatio n, for both of them its essential picture was the

same.

For both of them it was the civil ization of independent agriculturists—organized

as autonomous villages—cultivating

their

land to fulf i l

their

needs. These autono-

mous villages organized their ow n economic and polit ical institutions, including

the man ufacturing activities . No external Governm ent, no external industry, no market

For Gand hi, these were also the symb ols of a resurgent India, of an India

made free again th roug h the independence of its agricu lture and its villages .

83



dictated what they may or may not do or produce. Such was the independent agricul-

ture that moved into Brit ish hands through the events foll ow ing the defeat of 17 57* .

British period

The Britishers had no use for this Indian concept of agriculture as an autonom ous

way of l ife. In their eyes, the agriculture on wh ich they acquired control was nothing

but a source of revenue. An d they set ab out the task of colle cting more and more

revenue with great zeal. R.P. Du tt (19 40) records that, 'In the last year of adm inist-

ration of the last Indian ruler of Beng al, in 17 64- 65, the land revenue realized w as

£8 ,1 7, 00 0. In the first year of the Com pany's adm inistration, in 1765 -66, the land

revenue realised in Bengal was £ 1,470,000. By 177 1-2, it w as £2 ,3 48 ,0 00 , and

by 1775-6 it was £2 ,8 18 ,00 0. When Lord Cornwallis f ixed the permanent settlement

in 17 93, he fixed it £ 3,4 00 ,00 0/ (p. 114). W ith more and more money flow ing into

the B rit ish hands the vil lage and the producer were left w ith precious litt le to feed

themse lves and maintain the v arious villa ge institutio ns that catered to their needs.

Accord ing to Dharampal's estimates, whereas around 1 750, for every 1000 units of

produce the producer paid 300 as revenue, only 50 of w hich we nt out to the central

author ity, the rest remaining wit hin the vil lage ; by 1830, he had to giv ea wa y 650

units as revenue, 590 of wh ich we nt straight to the central authority. As a result of

this level of revenue callectio n the c ult ivators and the vil lagers both were destroyed.

But that was of little conc ern to the Britishers as long as the agriculture k ept on

performing its new function of f i l l ing the Brit ish coffers. How far agriculture lost

its previous position of being the provide r of the life-needs of the people, and became

merely the source of B rit ish wea lth is tell ingly brought out by the comm unication

sent by Warren Hastings to the Court of Directors of the Com pany, on No v. 3,1772*

a year after the great fam ine in Bengal that killed perhaps 10 million people. Warren

Hastings reports :

"No twith stan ding the loss of at least one -third of the inhabitants of the prov ince,

and the consequent decrease of the cultiv atio n, the net collection s of the year

1771 exceeded even those of 176 8.... It was na turally to be expected that the

dim inutio n of revenve s hould have kept an equal pace w it h the other consequences

of so great a calamity. That it did no t was ow ing to its being violently kept up to

its former stand ard." (D utt 1940, p. 115 ).

* Before we move onto the British phase of Indian agricu lture, we wish to undo one

prevalent misconception—that these decentralized vil lage comm unities w ere

tech nica lly ineffic ient. Al l available accounts of those times su ggest tha t : the

independent cultiva tors had achieved almost complete perfection in the art of

agricu lture' producing 'the most abundant crops, the corn standing as thic k on the

groun d as the lan d c ould we ll bear it' (Walker 1820 ) ; the decentralize d manu-

facturers wer e able to produce th e finest specimens of not only textile s, but also

of steel ; the village institutio ns had spread educa tion so we ll that G. L. Prender-

gast, member, Gove rnor's Cou ncil, Bombay remarked in 1821 that, '...there is

hardly a vil lag e, great or small throu ghou t our territorie s, in wh ich there is not at

least one sc ho ol,... there is hardly a cu ltivator or a petty dealer w ho is not

competent to keep his ow n accounts w ith a degree of ac cu ra cy ../ ; this decen-

tralized civil ization was able to produce medical practioners, astronomers,

philosophers and artists of the highest order. For further details on these aspects

of the Indian civil iza tion, see, Dharampal (19 71) , Claude Alvares (1976), Dutt

R. P. (1940>

r

Dutt R. C. (1 97 0) .

89



The independent cult ivato r of yester-years, wh o cultiva ted his land to fu lfil his

needs, now had become a too l to produce revenues that w ou ld fuel the Industrial

Revolution of E ngla nd*. He w ou ld eat only after the demands o1i that Revo lution

were met. An d if after meeting those demands, noth ing was left to eat, he may as

well have d ied, as many of them did . He was no more importan t in himself. Latin

American and African Civilizations had previously been sa crificed to prepare for this

great event in 'hum an' history. Now it was the turn of the Indian Civilization to come

forwa rd and be carried t o the alter.

This change of vie w of agriculture from a source of life in India t o source of

'progres s' in England brou ght in its wake unto ld misery. Irrigation works fell into

dilap idatio n. Vast tracts of cultiva ble land decayed into a state of jung le. Industry got

uprooted.

Education got destroyed . All philosop hical, scientific and literary activity came

to a stan dstill. People died and the culture stagnate d. The story of that early plunder by

the Britishers and the consequent misery or India is we ll docum ented, thoug h not

so we ll know n amongst the educated Indians **. We shall not repeat that story

here.

It should be remembered that the impo rtant poin t abo ut tha t sad chapter of

Indian history is not the imme diate destru ction and misery of that period . There had

been plunderers before, and perhaps they had spread an equal amount of mis ery* **.

Such open plunder could no t last

long.

The Britishers themselves soon realized

that the type of destruction let loose by their early adm inistrators in India was lik ely

to k ill the goose that laid golden eggs. Therefore , some semblance of order had

to be restored. Cultiva tion was to reappear in the areas wh ich had reverted to the

jungle. Some irrigatio n facilitie s were to be provide d. Some of the industrial

act ivity, all of wh ich had been moved from the villages to th e cities of Lancashire

and Manchester in the early British phase, was to return to the Indian cities. Some

educa tion was to get reorganized, thou gh only according to the patterns dictated by

Macaulay—only to produce some lackeys, Ind ian in bloo d and colour, but English-

men in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect

1

. Even some philos ophic al,

scien tific and literary activities were to restart, though in the English mould . But,

and this is the important point about that phase of Indian history , India was

never to be the same again. The villages and the agriculturists livin g there were

never to become autonomous again. Never again wou ld there be independent

* The revenues extracted from India after the Battle of Plassey have been recognised

to be of critical importance in setting in mo tion the Industrial Revo lution, by many

observers. For details and references to some of the authors wh o have comm ented

upon it, see R. P. Dutt (1940), p. 116-119.

** Both Dutt R. P. (1940 ) and Dutt R. C. (19 70) give a detailed account of this des-

t ruct ion. These books also contain detailed references to the historical accounts

of this period.

** * Thoug h, there seems to be an important qualitative difference between the plunde-

rers that visite d India before, and the Britishers. The earlier robbers, like the

notoriou s Ghazani, looted the surplus accumulated in temples and wi th the aristo-

cracy, leaving the life in the villages more or less unaffe cted. The legalized plunder

by Hastings etc., and their hordes, on the other h and, ravaged every hut in every

vil lage.

90



cultivators, cultivating their land to fulfi l their needs. Those needs wo uld always be

subservient to the needs of the state, the industry and the market - all of wh ich were

now severed from ag riculture. Agr iculture w as never again to become a way of

life.

It had become a mere economic act ivity . It had been f ina lly 'mod ernised '.

The major instrument of this modernisation, besides the naked force used by

the early Britishers, was the system of landlordship introduc ed into India for the

first tim e. Independent cultivators, cultivating their own piece of

land,

were not likely

to put external econom ic needs b efore their need to eat and clothe. A landlord ,

however, assured of his personal we ll-b ein g, cou ld be relied upon to produce and

sell wh at the industry or the state needed. He cou ld be relied upon to respond to

the m arket. He could be relied upon to divert goo d f oodg rain land t o opium , indigo

and so on , whi le famines stalked the cou ntry. By making agriculture responsive t o

the market and the state the landlord became the modernising force. Thus, Marx

counted landlordism as one of the few regenerative forces introduc ed into India by the

Britishers. 'The

Zam/'ncfari

and

ryotwari

themselves', declared Marx (1853b ) while

listing the regenerative forces, 'abominab le as they are, inv olve tw o distinc t forms of

private property in land-th e great desideratum of Asiatic So ciety '. Independent

cu l t i -

vators used to grow what they needed to live, rather than produc ing wha t w as needed

to 'progress '. They required the conce pt of private property in

land,

personified in

the landlor d, to teach them that it is more importa nt to progress, to indus trialize, than

to eat and clothe . The Britishers provided them w ith the landlord . An d "modernised'

them.

How succ esful were the Britishers in modernising Indian agriculture—in making it

responsive to the needs of the industry and the vicissitudes of the market—can be gauged

from the crop out put data of the last fif ty years of the British rule. The Central

Government had started publishing such data by the late nineteenth century. The period

before the first Wo rld War was marked by a favou rable wo rld market in all export

crops, and expansion in tha dom3stic man ufacturing capacity in text ile and jut e.

Consequently we find Indian agriculture flourish ing in this period— agricultura l out-

put rising at a rate faster than the gr ow th of popu lation, it is perhaps one of the best

periods in British Indian agricu lture, w ith per capita food availability hovering around

540 gms per day thro ugh out this period inspite of substantial exports of rice and whea t.

Then came World War I, fo llow ed by the Great Economic Depression, and the W orld

War II. Export markets contra cted. Prices of agricultural products crashed*. An d Indian

agriculture took a nose-dive . W hile non -food grain produ ction merely stagna ted, the

foodgrain produ ction started show ing a declining tren d even when population was

rising. Per capita food a vailabil i ty for the quinquennium ending 1946 was dow n to

417 gms per day inspite of some im ports . Interes tingly th e only crop that showe d

* The general who lesale price index for Calcutta (July 19 14 = 100) w hic h stood at

202 in 1920 declined to 173 in 1924 and 141 by 1929 and touche d the rock

bott om of 87 points in 1933. Indices of cereals, pulses and oilseeds in 1933 stood

at 66, 84 and 74 respectively, (Vera Anstey , 1949 ; quoted from NCAR, 197 6;

Vol. 1, p. 128). Later w ith the outbreak of the Second W orld W ar, food prices

increased reflecting general scarcity (NCAR stands for the Report of the National

Commission on Agriculture, 1976).

91



expansion in this period was sugarcane wh ich was granted protection by imposing new

tariffs on import W hile famine was on the horizon , the area under this comm ercially

favoured crop actually increased by about 40 per cent between 1930-31 and 193 8-3 9.*

Thus, in this f ifty year period we see the agriculture going up or dow n w ith the

wo rldw ide economic forces. These forces, and not the needs of the people decided

how much of wh at the Indian agriculture wo uld produce. Economics had w on , life

had fai led.

Post-Independence phase

As noted above, independence came to India at a t ime w hen agriculture w as

passing throug h a particularly bad phase. Bengal had jus t passed through a major

famine* Per capita foo d availa bility was dangerously low (417 gm s/day in 1946 ). Rural

indebtedness had been increasing alarm ingly - according to the Central Bank ing Enquiry

Com mittee, rural indebtedness had nearly doubled between 1929 and 1936 .

Cultivators were find ing diff icult ies meeting their f ixed liabilit ies such as rent,

land,

revenue, etc. Many agriculturists were turning into landless labourers (NCA R, Vol. 1,

p. 19 9). Partit ion of the country worsened the situation further, and the country was

facing an acute shortage of both the commercial crops and the food crops (NCAR ,

Vol . 1, p. 21 9). Som ething needed to be done imm ediately to improve agriculture.

An obviou s line of action was to concentrate on improving irrigation facilities

that had been severely depleted w ith partit ion (only 19.7 % of the net sown area with in

the Indian Union was irrigate d), and to take steps to put the cult ivators back on the

land and reduce rural indebtedness thro ugh land reforms. Some sort of land reforms

had in fact become a polit ical necessity, given the aspirations that people associated

w ith independence. Ac tion on both these fronts was started immediately after

independence. Between 1947 -48 and 1949 -50 the net irrigated area increased from

18.9 Mha to 20.2 Mha-m ost of the increase coming from increase in the area

irrigated by we lls and other minor sources (NCA R, Vo l. 1, p. 22 1). Irrigation

facilit ies kept on increasing at roughly the same pace— achieving an annual rate of

increase of 0.67 M ha of gross irriga ted area for the period 195 0-5 1 to 196 8-69

(NCA R, Vo l. V, p. 43). Land reforms were init iated by most states by 1950. These

envisaged abolit ion of Zemindari, security of tenure for tenant cult ivators and

fixation of reasonable rents ; later some ceilings on land h oldings were also

introduced . Though carried out in a ha lfhe arte d manner, these land reform measures

continued to provide some relief to the cult ivato rs righ t through the fift ies and early

sixties.

Agric ultural production responded we ll to the restoration of some just order in

land relations and to the s low ly increasing irrigation facilit ies. Aggregate crop-output

during the fift ies kept on increasing at a rate faster than the population g row th. Both

the area under crops and the yield per hectare of almost every crop showed a

rising trend.

* For informa tion regarding this period of Indian agriculture see, George Blyn (1966).

Also see NCAR, 1976, Vol. 1, ch. 3.



However, Independent India also wan ted to become 'mode rn' and ' industrialised '.

An d for the modernising industrialising India, it was not enough that agricultural

output should increase. It was also im portant that a gricultural produ ction should

respond to the needs of the market. In particular, it was imp ortant th at f oo d shou ld

come to the market for sale. Because, as the NCAR (Vo l. I I , p. 14) noted , Th e entire

industrial sector depends heavily on the supply of food from the agricultural sector.

Since a sizeable part of the wages of the indus trial worke r is spent on foo d items, a

sustained supp ly of foo d from agricultura l sector is a necessary cond ition for sta bility

in the industrial sector... ' . But production rising through the expansion of irrigation and

land reforms was jus t not com ing to the markets to reach the indu strial sector. The

National Commission moaned that, 'The unique features of the food situation during the

Second Plan period were the increasing dema nd for foo d grains and a steady decline

in market arrivals

despite higher prod uction

1

(NCAR , Vo l. 1, p. 18 8)* . I t may be

that part of the reason for this phenom enon was 'speculative hold ing of stocks by the

grain trad e'. But that does not seem to be the only cause, since variou s experiments

of introduc ing control in the fo od trade did not help matters and the urban industrialized

sector had to be fed w ith increasin g impo rts till mid-s ixties. It seems more probable

that the general impro veme nt in the land relations and irrigatio n wh ich were the causes

of the increased production also improved the lot of the cult ivators—a nd they simply

ate more . This is wh at is likely to happen in a situatio n whe re the average per capita

availabil ity of foo d was low (around 460g m in 1960 -61) and a large proport ion of

rural population (around 40% in 1960-61 according to Dandekar and Rath 1971)

had insuff icient purchasing power to buy the bare minimum o f 2,250 calories of

foo d per day. An y increase in production achieved over a wid e prod uction base

under such circumstances is no t likely to reach the market. This tenden cy was

further encouraged by the fact that a gricultural production in the f ift ies and early

sixties was by and large indepe ndent of inputs from outside the ag ricultu ral sector.

As the NCA noticed , produc tion depended largely on the amount of labour the

cul t i -

vator w as able or prepared to p ut in. Al l inputs w ere farm produced (VoL II, p 9) .

So the agriculture was becom ing independent of the urban sector both on the input

side and the output side. To the extent it was being freed from the yoke of landlordism

it was once again sho wing trad it ional characters of being self-sufficient—the charac-

teristics tha t the Britishers suppressed p recisely thro ugh land lord ism .

Thus resulted the dilemma of increased prod uction and de clinin g market arrivals

along with increasing independence of the a gricultural sector from the urban sector.

The Indian planners saw the solution— in making the areas w hich were already surplus

in

food,

more surplus. The idea was to concen trate resources in those areas that were

already we ll-end ow ed. Such areas being already surplus wo uld have no alternative

but to bring their extra production to the market and transfer it to the industrial sector.

In this scheme there was no danger of the producers consum ing the increased produce

as was bound to happen whe n the resources were allowed to f lo w to the deficit areas.

This l ine of approach in fact was introduced into Indian agricultural plannin g rather

early. 'Instead of spre ading the efforts thin all over the coun try it was decide d in

1950-51 to concentrate such efforts in compact areas called ' intensive cult iva tion areas

* emphasis added.

93



which possessed assured water supply and fertile soils

1

(NCAR, Vol .1, p. 14 3). In

1959,

'the Agric ultura l P roduction Team of the Ford Foundation recommended the

intensive approach anew',

( ib id,

p. 14 9). An d w ith the visible failure in the Second

Plan to get the foo d to the market inspite of increasing prod uctio n, a new Intensive

Ag ricultu ral D istrict Programme (IA DP ) was launched in the closing years of the

Second Plan. The expressed objec tive of the programme was to concentrate resources

and efforts in specially endow ed areas to achieve a quick break-throu gh in prod uctio n.

The programme was expanded in 1964 under the name of Intensive Ag ricltu ral Area

Programme (IAAP ) to cover more of the we ll-end ow ed areas. A ll alon g, it was made

sure that only areas w it h adequate produc tion potential in terms of assured w ater and

infrastructural facilities be chosen, and that emphasis be directed towa rds pro fitab ility

at the farm level.

The ostensible argument in favour of these Intensive' approaches was that resources

spread thin over a large area are lost leaving no appreciable effect on prod uction ; that

only a package of practices invo lving concentrate d doses of resourses cou ld be

tech nolo gically effective ; and that increased produ ction achieved in these areas wit h

improved practices wo uld have a 'dem ons tration ' effect in other areas. The latter

argume nt obvio usly had no weigh t— there were just not sufficient resources to spread

such 'inte nsiv e' practices elsewhere— especially in areas whic h were to begin w ith not

'w ell end ow ed'. As for the other argument of tec hnologica l efficacy of an intensive

package the fact is that there were no agricultura l tec hnologies in use that could absorb

and respond to intensive doses of resources *.

Traditional technologies , evolved in a more egalitarian conte xt, evolved in a contex t

where the foo d needs of cultiva tors were more importan t than the needs of surpluses

to support 'progres s', w ere just not capable of absorbing more than their due share

of resources. An d w ith in that cont ext, there was little that the experts of the Ford

Foundation cou ld teach the Indian farmers by way of possible improvements.

Long back in 1889 , Dr. J . A. Voelcker, deputed by the Secretary of State for India

to advise on the application of agricultural chemistry to Indian agriculture had

noted this perfec tion. He reported that:

'. .. it must be remembered that the natives of India were cultivators of w heat

centuries before those in England were . It is not likely, therefore, that th eir

practice should be capable of much improvem ent. Wh at does, howev er, prevent

them from gro win g larger crops is the limited facilities to w hic h they have

access, such as the supply of water and m anure ...' (quoted in Alvares , 1979

p. 52).

Therefore it is not surprising that the efforts of Indian planners to achieve

increased production th rough 'imp rov ed' practices in areas wh ich did have access

to facilities like supply of water and manure, should prove abortive . In fact, the

* It should be noted that the thrust of the IADP and IAAP was not on introd uctio n of

new technologies, but on an intensive application of resources like irrigation,

ferti l isers, etc.

94



attempt was a complete failure. According to NCAR

( V o l . 1 ,

p. 411) rice yields in

the 12 rice distric ts and wh eat yields in the 4 whe at districts under the lADP^

averaged only 13.3 quintals and 13.5 quintals per hectare compared to the pre-package

average of 12.4 and 10.2 quinta ls. As against these marginal increases in yields,

the added costs of the recomm ended packages were equiva lent to 10 quintals of

wheat o n the average, and 10 to 12.4 q uintals of paddy for most of the districts-

The efficienc y of the package for other crops w as even wo rse .*

Thus the intensive package approach to agricultur al developm ent being tried

out in India since the fifties had really noth ing to do w ith techn ologica l e fficacy.

The policy in fac t o nly expressed a political wish for a technology that wou ld

respond to these measures—a techno logy that wou ld allow the concentration of

resources and productio n in a few co mpa ct already surplus areas. The policy was

asking for a technology that w ou ld achieve techno logically wha t was achieved by

the Britishers polit ically through ths landlords—namely, responsiveness of agricul-

ture to the needs of the indus try and the market in preference to the life-needs of

the cult ivators. In other words, the developments sought for in the agricultural

sector was not one that w ill prim arily meet the needs of the rural po pula tion, but

one that w ill provide the resources and capital needed for the industrialisa tion

taking place in the urban centres. W hat was needed was to break the independence

of the rural sector and bring it into increasing dependence on the urban sector;

make it enter into increasing exchange relations w ith the latter—the terms of exchange

being ma nipulated to be so unequal as t o enable the urban sector to extract the

maximum possible surplus from the rural sector. Thus, the need was fo r a certain techn o-

logy to be introduced into the agricultural sector that wo uld bring about such a trans-

forma tion. No such tech nol ogy was available at the time the intensive approach polic y

was being formulated and implemented. By mid-sixties, however, such a technology

became available in the form of new 'miracle seeds' that had proved successful in Mexico.

These seeds were genetically se lected to absorb huge doses of chemical fertilize rs. Since

these seeds had not evolved under natural con dition s, they we re susceptible to a number

of pests and pathogens and needed to be gro wn under the protec tive cover of pes ti-

cides. The new seeds also required new sophisticate d practices for irrig ation , tillag e

etc. This was just the ideal techn ology to fit the

bi l l .

It wo uld make the policy of

concentration of resources econo mica lly and tech nolo gica lly viable. At the same time it

wou ld make the agriculture critic ally dependant on indus trial inputs like chemical fer tili-

zers and pesticides, and make the cultiv ator dependeet upon the urban expert for the

knowledge of the correct agricultural practices, thus removing the "dangerous tend enc y"

of self-sufficiency in the agriculture sector for good. This technology, being so expensive

could not possibly be extended over the whole cou ntry. But that did not matter.

All that was required was to make the surplus areas a little more surplus, so that the

urban-industrial sector wo uld be assured of its requirem ents. However there was a

snag.

Acceptance of this technology wou ld involve import of large amounts of ferti l izer

and pesticides , for India did not produce these. In the initial stages even seeds wo ul d

* D. K. Desai (1969 ) and Dorris D. Bro wn (1971) have analysed the ADP programmes

in detail.

95



have to be imported . Prov identially, there was a widespread failure of monsoon in 1965

and 1966 in India, as we ll as over the rest of South Asia and So uth East Asia . This

failure led to the spectre of a major famine— foreign experts predicted doom, some of

them suggesting the poss ibil ity of one mill ion starvation deaths in Bihar alone (NCAR,

V o l . 1 ,

p 27 ; Speech of the Chairman, NCAR, Shri C. Subramanian). This situation

removed all hesitation about accepting the new seeds even if it involved massive imports.

The ever helpfu l attitu de of the Ford Found ation and the Rockefeller Found ation further

encouraged the acceptance of the new techn ology. And in 1966-6 7 the New strategy

of Agricu ltural Developme ct, w ith the programme of introducing the new technology ,

mainly in the areas covered by IADP and IAAP was launch ed. Similar programmes were

adopte d in all of So uth and South East Asia at around the same time . The programme

was declared an immed iate success. This success is w hat came to be kn ow n as the

Green Revolution. In the follo win g we wish to look at this 'success story' in some

detail.

We have given such a long historical introduction to this analysis of Green Revolu-

t ion , because we feel that, wi tho ut an appreciation of the continuous con flict o f ' t rad ition '

versus 'modernity' in Indian agriculture since the arrival of the Britishers, it is not possible

to assess the merits of this revolution. With out kn owin g this historical urge for moder-

nity in agricu lture— for making agriculture responsive to the needs external to the life -

needs of the cultivator—it is impossible to see how this event which did not increase the

aggregate rates of grow th of agricultural outpu t, did not.decrease import-dependence of

agriculture, did not enhance per capita availability of food, came to be termed a Revolu-

t ion.

II . GREEN REVOLU TION—S ALIENT FEATURES

The new te chn olog y of the 'miracle seeds' and associated practices was indeed

successful in generating high yields, wherever su fficient resources to effectively

implem ent it cou ld be mo bilised . For some especially endo wed areas, the increase in

yield cou ld even be jus tifiab ly charactarised as revo lutionary . This was amply borne

ou t by a number of studies carried out to make a sc ientifc evalu tion of the response

of differ ent crops in different areas under the High Yielding Varieties (HYV) Pro-

gram me*. How ever, our purpose in this article is not an evaluatio n of the Green

* This was how the programme to introduce new technology in certain we ll endowed

areas was officially styled. The programme was monitored by the Programme

Evaluation Organisation of the Planning Commission during 1 967-6 9. The relevant

results on the yields of differe nt crops in different areas under the HY\fP

have been gleaned from the various PEO evaluation studies and summ arised in

Append ix 4.2 of NCAR, Vol 1 , by the National Commission on Agricu lture. In

Appe ndix 4.3 of NCAR , V ol 1, a summary of a study on the relative econom ic

returns from HYV and local varieties carried out by the Ag ro-e con om ic Research

Centres at various locations in the c oun try in 196 8-6 9 and published by Ram

Saran (19 72 ), is also availab le. From these studies it can be said that HYV whe at

faired rather wel l in almost all areas. The main kharif crop of rice, howe ver, seems

to have showe d almost no response to HYV cu ltivatio n. This incidentally was

the fate of the monsoon rice crop all over South and Sou th East Asia. Tha studies

also show a wide variation in the response to HYV from area to area.

96



Revolution techno logy as a breakthrough in the 'science of agriculture*. We want to

evaluate the Green Revolution as an event in the gro wth of Indian Agricultu re. These

tw o ways of looking at this new techno logy can give quite different results. For an

evaluation of th e Green R evolution as an event in the history of gro wt h of Indian

agriculture

/

it is not suffic ient to assess the success of a few crops in c ertain loca -

lised areas. Wh at we need to look at is the aggregate response of Indian Agric ultu re

to the event of Green Rev olution .

Aggregate rates of growth

In Table 1, w e have put together the comp ound rates of gro wt h of some of the

importan t parameters of agricultural develop men t for the periods before and after

the Green R evolution . We have taken the year 1967-6 8 as the d ividin g line , when

Green R evolution is supposed to have set in. The pre-Green Revolution period con -

sidered runs from 1 949-5 0 to 1 964-6 5 and the post-Green Revolution period from

1967-68 to 197 7-78 , excluding the disastrous years 1965-6 6 and 196 6-67 . There

is some controversy about the correct d ividing line for these tw o phases of post-

Independence agriculture How ever, mos t of the results tha t we shall notice are quite

independent of the va riations in the div iding year. For an analysis wi th a d ifferent

divid ing line w e may refer to the paper of George Blyn (197 9) where the rates of

grow th for the period 194 9-50 to 1973-74 are studied taking 1960-6 1 as the

dividing year between the new and old phase of India a griculture. We shall often

use some of his d ata.

Looking at Table 1 the first thing we notice is that the rate of grow th of aggregate

crop-p roduc tion is lowe r in the post-Green Rev olution phase as com pared to the earlier

TABLE

1

Compound Rates of G row th

i

uilU

Crop

Foodgrains

Non-Foodgrains

All Crops

Rice

Wheat

Pulses

Production

d

( a )

a

1949-50

t o

1964-65

2.98

3.65

3.20

3.37

3.07

1.62

(b )

1967-68

t o

1977-78

2.40

2.70

2.50

2.21

5.73

0.20

Area

(a )

1949-50

to

1964-65

1.34

2.52

1.60

1.26

2.70

1.87

( b )

1967-68

to

1977-78

0.38

1.01

0.55

0.74

3.10

0.75

Yield

(percent per annum)

(a )

1949-50

t o

1964-65

1.61

1.06

1.60

2.09

1.24

- 0 . 2 4

(b )

1967-68

t o

1977-78

1.53

1.15

1.40

1.46

2.53

- 0 . 4 2

(a) Gleaned from NCAR 1976 (Vol. 1, Ch. 3, p. 230 -24 1)

(b) Estimates of Area and Production of Principal Crops in India, 19 78 -7 9

of Economin Statis tics.

published by the Directorate

97



phase. Wh ile tota l agric ultura l prod uction rose at a com pound rate of 3.20 par cent per

annum in the earlier, period , the rate declined to 2 .50 per cent per annum in the second

period.

The decline was visible in both the foodgrain o utput and non-food grain output

George-Blyn (19 79 ), covering a slightly shorter period 1949 -50 to 1973-74 and

dividing it at

1960-61,

finds even a sharper decline of the trend rate in the later period .

Keith Griffin (197 9) analysing the crop -outp ut trends over all of the underd evelop ed

wo rld f inds the trends declining after the Green Revolution (1965 is the div iding

year in his analysis) in all the major regions except the Far East, wh ere the gr ow th

rate is foun d to be practic ally the same in the pre and p ost Green R evo lution periods

(see his Table 1.1 and 1.2). Thus it can be safely asserted that the c om poun d

rate of grow th of aggregate agricultural p rodu ction, as also of total foodgrains and

total non-foodgrains produ ction was lower in the post Green R evolution phase.

The decline in the rate of grow th of a gricultural prod uction is often explained

away as a consequence of the dec lining availa bility of additio nal area that cou ld be

brou ght under cultiv atio n. In fact there is considerable statistical evidence that the

decline in the gr ow th rate of production must be to some extent attribu ted to the

decline in the gro wt h rate of area under the crops. From Tab le 1 w e see that the

tota l area under all crops grew at a rate of 1.60 per annum during 194 9-6 5 but

the rate fell to 0.55 during 19 67 -78 . An interesting aspect of the trend rates of

area that should be noticed is that throughout the period 1949 -78, during w hich

foo d situation in the country remained precarious, area under non-fo odgra in crops

rose at a rate much faster than the area under foodg rains . In the later period the

trend rates of area under foodgrain s and non-fo odgra ins w ere 0.38 and 1.01 respecti-

vely, a difference of about 3 t ime s.

Tho ugh decline in the rate of gr ow th of area does exp lain part of the decline in the

rate of gro wth of produ ction, it does not explain all of it. In fact, the rate of gro wth

of y ield, prod uction per unit area, itself dec lined. Thus, as show n in Table 1 ,

wh ile the aggregate yield rose at a rate of 1.60% annually during 194 9-65 ,

the increase w as only 1.40% annually during 1967-7 8. Interestingly, on dis-

aggregation into foodgrains and non-foodgrains, we find that wh ile for foodgrains there is

a slight decline in the rate of growth of y ield, non-foodgrains show a slight improvement.

Yet HYVP was supposed to have revolutionized foodgra ins prod uction I Further

disagg regation of foodgrains into the major crop of rice, wh eat and pulses show s more

interesting features. We find ths rate of gro wth of rice declining sharply from 2.09 to

1.46, and that of pulses wh ich was already negative going further below , from -0.24 to

-0 .42. Only whea t shows an improvement in the trend rate. Keith Griff in (1970)

notices the same trend of increasing whea t production (except in Africa ) and decreasing

rice production all over the under-developed wo rld .*

* The above statements of course refer t o the data presented in Table 1, w hic h

is gleaned from the statistics put out by the Governm ent (NCAR 1976).

There are som ewh at differen t data available elsew here in the literature (see for

example Gail Om wedt (1981), Ranjit Sau (1 931 ), which employ either different

sources or different base years etc. But from these data also , the same general

trends are obvious : the decline in the rate of gr ow th of aggregate agricultura l

produ ction ; no increase in the aggregate agricu ltural y ield; marked decline in

the aggregate yield of crops such as rice, pulses, etc.



It is tem pting to try to explain the decline in the grow th rate of aggregate yields by

referring to the law of declinin g marginal prod uctiv ity. Wh at it means in simple terms

is that wit h the given techn ology and resources the produ ctivity during the years before

the Green R evolution had reached a saturation level, and wit ho ut

a

technological

change mainta ining the earlier rates of grow th wou ld have been im possible. If the new

technology had not been introduced, the rates of grow th of produc tivity, which

admittedly declined a l i ttle after the Green Revolution, wo uld have plumm eted. Now to

state that this law had started operating around 19 64- 65, one must show that by that

period the poss ibilities of expanding irrigatio n and impro ving land relations, wh ich were

responsible for the increasing yields till then had been exhausted in India. At a later

stage in this paper we shall examine whe ther such a situation had actu ally arisen. For

the present let us only look at the statistical evidence, if any, in favour of the assumption

that the Indian Agr icultur e in 1954 -65 had reached the saturation level. If this had

happened, we should be able to observe a declining trend in the rates of growth of

productivity in the years preceding the Green Rev olution. In Table 2, we display the

plan-wise rates of grow th of agricultural produ ction, area and productivity. What we

see there is tha t during the Third Plan period (19 61- 62 to 1964-65 ), i.e., during the

period imme diately preceding the years whe n the decision to implem ent the HYVP was

made, the prod uctiv ity had reached an all time high rate of gro wt h. The rate of gr ow th

of prod uctiv ity in this period was 2.7 % per annum , as compared to the annual gro wt h

rate of 1.4% and 1 8% achieved during the First and the Second Plan periods. Thus the

produ ctivity graph, far from having reached a plateau , was actually mov ing upwards in

the years before the Green Revolution. During the Fourth Plan (1969-7 0 to 197 3-7 4),

i.e. during the five year period imm ediately fol low ing the introd uctio n of the Green

Revolution technology , the rate of grow th of productivity, however, touched an all time

low of 1 % . Thus it is obvjous that the decline in 'the gro wth of pro duc tivity after the

Green Revolution cannot be triv ially e xplained by taking recourse to the law of d eclinin g

marginal productivity.

Table 2

Plan-wise Compound Rates of Growth of Agricultural

Production, Area and Yield*

Plan

Period

First Plan

(1951-52 to 1955-56)

Second Plan

(1956-57 to 1960-61)

Third Plan

(1961-62 to 1964-65)**

Fourth Plan

(1969-70 to 1973-74)

Agricultural

Production

4.1

3.1

3

V

3

2.2

Area Under

Crops

2.6

1.3

0.6

0.8

Yield

(% per annum)

1.4

1.8

2.7

1.0

Plan-wise gr ow th rates have been calcu lated on the basis of trienn ial averages with the base and last

year of each plan as the mid-yea rs, except for the Third and Fourth Plan w hen instead of the trienn ial

periods the years 1964 -65 and 197 3-7 4 respectively were taken as the end periods, to avoid including

especially bad years at the end.

** 196 5-66 , being an exceptionally bad year, has been exclude d.

Source: Table 3.16 of NCAR, 1976, Vo l . 1



There is no way to escape the fac t that, notwiths tand ing hig hly visible increases in

produc tion and yields of a few crops in a few areas, both agricultural production and

agricultural p rodu ctivity in the aggregate showed a lower rate of gro wth after the Green

Revolution tech nolo gy was introduce d. Even if one doubts the statistical significance

of sma ll changes in the trend rates, it is sti ll impossible to ma intain that there was any

improvem ent in the gro wth rates of aggregate production and p rodu ctivity. There

def initel y was no revolution in the Indian agriculture w ith the introduc tion of the new

'revolut ionary' technology.

It must be adm itted that maintain ing a gro wth rate of abou t 2.5% per annum for

aggregate produ ction and above 1 % per annum for aggregate produc tivity over a period

of about 3 decades is no mean ach ievement, even if the gro wt h rates did decline a

little in the later period as compa red to the earlier period . If we have poin ted out this

decline it is only to establish that no revolution occured in Indian agriculture wi th the

onset of the so-called Green Revo lution. What we wa nt to crit icise however are the

special features associated w ith the attempt to achieve this gro wth throug h the new

technolog y in the later period. It is to those features that we turn our attention now*

Costs of production

The rate of grow th of produc tion and prod uctivity of Indian agriculture declined

wi th the advent of the new techno logy. Wh at is wors e, howeve r, is the fact that a

high price had to be paid to achieve even this reduced rate of gro wth . The HYV

tech nolo gy is know n to involve fairly high costs in terms of energy, in terms of

depletion of soil- fertil ity and deterioration of the environm ent, and in terms of money.

A lot of data is available o n the energy costs o f the new techno logy of

agri-

culture. And it clearly indicates th at the HYV technolog y is energetically inefficient

compared to the traditiona l techno logies. If all outputs from and inputs into agriculture

are converted in to equivalent energy units and outp ut to input ratio is analysed,

then the new techn ology invariably turns out to be inferior to the traditional

technologies. For the tradition al technologies the ou tpu t/inp ut ratio is often greater

than one, indicating that these tech nologies are efficien tly fixing the freely available

solar energy. For the new techno logies this ratio is, howeve r, alwa ys less than one.

The difference in the energy efficiencies of the old and new techno logy can be as

large as 50* -25 0* * t imes.

* A 1968 comparison of the energy efficiency of British agriculture as a who le wi th

that of shifting rice cultiv ation carried out by Dyaks and Ibans in Borneo showed

that wh ile the efficiency of the former was only 0.20, that of the latter ranged

between 14.2 and 18.2 (quoted in Caldw ell (1979) p 56 ). A more relevant com -

parison is perhaps the one carried out by Lockeretz et al (1 977 ). They com pared

tw o sets of farms in the U.S. corn belt that differed from each other only in the

fac t that one set used only orga nic manures and no inorga nic fertilizer or pesticide

wh ile the other set used these inputs. They foun d that while the two sets of farms

showe d comparable econom ic efficiency the organic farms used 2.4 to 2.5 times

less energy per dollar of outp ut. Incide ntally, the organic farms were also able to

employ 1 2% more labour, a com mo dity plen tifully available in India.

** See, for enauple Reedy 1976

100



The new agricultural practices are known to have a deleterious effect o n the

environmen t and the soil-fe rt i l i ty. Chemical fert i l izers change the soil f lora and

destroy the equil ibrium of the soil. Consequen tly, more and more of chemical

inputs become essen tial to get the same yield from a piece of land under this

type of cu ltiva tio n. This process of increasing ch emica l inputs year after year can

even lead to permanent damage to the soil. Pesticides, an essential com pone nt

of the new techn ology , form another compo nent of the ecological costs. These

pesticides have a wa y of being carried from foo d to man and other l iving beings,

and form an almost permanent health hazard. Al l these ecolog ical and energy

costs of the new technology are important in any evaluation of the Green Revolution.

However, in this paper we are mainly concerned with the economic costs of

t h i

s

Green Revolution.

The new technolog y of agriculture is capital intensive. Since this technolog y

depends crit ically upon industrial inputs l ike ferti l izers and pesticides, it comm its

the nation to large investments in these sectors. Thus in nitrogenous fert i l izer

alone the indigeno us capacity had to be increased from 0.37 mT of nutrients in

1967-68 to 2.23 mT in 197 9-80 *

u

. Generation of 2.23 mT of nutrients capacity

means in today's (198 0) prices an investment of Rupees 6000 crores. Even such

a heavy investm ent in fertilizers has not been sufficie nt to meet the fertilizer

requirements of the Green Revo lution, and in 197 9-80 , 1.3 mT of nitrogenous

nutrients alone had to be impo rted. Besides production capacity had to be gene-

rated for tractors, diesel-se ts, etc. In ad dition to this cap ital investmen t in the

industrial sector, every farmer ado pting the new techn olog y had to invest capital

in acquiring the necessary machines. This capital too often came through

the public f inancing agencies. If the idea of introduc ing the revolutionary new

techn ology was to provide new avenues of investments for the industrial sector,

and not bother about the cost of food pro duc tion, the Green Revolution technology

has clearly done the job we l l .

Even more impo rtant tha n the capital costs are the actual unit costs of in-

cremental produ ction obtained throu gh the HYV tech no logy . It is diff icu lt to put

a uniform value on these costs since there is a lot of varia tion from place to

place and year to year. Ju st to have an idea of the costs involve d we can look

at the evaluation studies of 19 67-6 9 referred to earlier (footnote on page 96 ). From

these studies we f ind that additional costs per quin tal of addit ional whea t pro-

duced throug h HYV varied between Rs. 25 to Rs. 45. On the average the costs of

fert i l izer app lication per hectare alone were around Rs. 230 , wh ich at best wo uld

have pro duce d an inc reme ntal response of 10 quin tals. These costs look favourab le

given the 1968-6 9 wheat procurement price of Rs. 76 per quin tal. However, it

shou ld be remembered that the price of wheat in 1968 -69 had almost doubled

from its pre Green Revo lution leve l, and that most of the inputs were heavily

subsidised. These subsidies and price changes, in fact, make any evaluation of

* These f igures are taken from Economic Survey, GO I, 1980-81. Figures for 1979 -

80 are provisional.

10 1



the economic feasibility of the new technology meaningless* Once the decision

to implement a technolog y is made, output prices and input subsidies can always

be manipulated to make the new technology econom ically feasible. The high costs

of pro duction throug h the new technology can however be inferred from the rising

prices and the fact that there is perhaps no country in the wo rld where pro duction

through the new technology can be maintained without subsidies and price supports.

In India it is perhaps an indicator of the high costs of HYV production that procure-

men t price of whe at, the major crop to come under HYV, has been rising at a much

faster rate than that of paddy, wh ich largely remained under tradit ional cult iv atio n.

And demand for higher paddy prices got some force only when the surplus Green

Revolution farmers took to HYV cult ivation of Rabi paddy.

External dependence

It

is com mo nly believed that the Green Revolution made India self-reliant in

agricultural prod uction. This belief is based on the impression that foodgrain imports

after the Green Revolution substantially declined. In fact, however, the net amount

of cereal imports in the decade before the Green Revolution, i. e. between 1956-65,

at 43 mT were only slig htly more than the net imports of 33 mT in the decade

1968 -77 fo llo w ing the Green Revolution . It is true that the imports did not rise wit h

the increasing population. But, as we have seen, the rate of gro wt h of foodgrain

production actually decreased after the Green Revolution, while the population

gro w th did not show a corresponding decline. Under these circumstances

<

what

cou ld the dec linin g cereal impo rts really me an? Impo rts of cereals in India have

alway s been resorted to in order to feed the urban sector. Reducing the imp orts fo r

this purpose became possible after the Green Re volutio n because more foo d started

flowing into the Government stocks, not because there was actually more food per

capita to go around. The increased availability of food w ith the Government was

caused by a lopsided grow th of agriculture on wh ich we shall comm ent in the

next subsection.

The imp ortan t po int to remember, however, is tha t decreased im ports o f cereals

did not im ply a decreased foreign dependence of agricultur e. Wh at was gained in

terms of reduced cereal impo rts was lost in terms of increased impo rts of agricu ltural

requisites, especially fertilise r. Before Green Re volution , expenditure on impo rts of agri-

cultu ral requisites used to be almost nil. In 1950-51, seven crore rupees were spent on

this head, in 1960-61, the expend iture was thirteen crores. In 1970-71, this expenditure

rose to 102 crores, and in 19 73- 74, it doub led to 201 crores. Then came the spurt in

ferti l izer prices, and in 1974-75

r

expenditure on ferti l izer import alone stood at 532.5

* An idea of the level of subsidies can be obtained form the fo llo w ing : Naphta, the

major raw material for the produc tion of nitrogenous ferti l izer, is sold to the fert i -

lizer indus try at a con trolle d price of Rs 90 0/t on w hil e for other users jthe price is

Rs 23 50 /ton (198 0 prices). The fertilizer produced is then furthe r subsidised. W hile

price suppo rt and subsidies are legitimate rig hts of the farmer if they must produce

via the new technology, it should be borne in mind that these measures help only a

miniscule proportion of Indian farmers, who use the new/technology and produce for

the market.

102



lores.

Thus the imp ort dependence of Indian agriculture had in fact been rising quite

last. Let us look at this data in a diffe ren t perspe ctive. The price of nitroge nous

fer t i-

lzer on a roug h average remains around 3 time s the price of w hea t. In the decade 19 67 -7 6,

in the average 0.72 mT of nitrogenous fertilizer was imported per ann um *. This is

equivalent to the import of 2 mT of wheat per annum, implying that the equivalent wheat

imports in the post Green Revolution decade had actu ally increased by 50 % . An d we

lave not yet counted the imports required to build up indigenous capacity in fertilizers

and

tractors etc , which should also in fact be counted under this head.

Thus, after the Green Rev olution, dependence of the agricu ltural sector on foreign

inputs increased in diverse wa ys. W hile earlier fo od alone had to be imp orte d, no w a

lumber of varied inputs had to be brough t in. W hile the Governme nt had to depend on

foreign coun tries for a large proportion of the new requisites of agric ulture , the agr icu l-

iurist had to dep end even more on the Go vernm ent and the ind ustr ial sector. There was

»increased external dependence all around**.

In add ition to this dependence for tangibles like fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, etc., of

le farmer on the Governme nt and of the G overnment on foreign supp liers, an intangible,

Hut not any less impo rtant, external dependence for know ledge of the agricultural pro-

•sses appeared. The farmer who till now was the expert on agricultural techno logy

Became ign ora nt in one swe ep. He had to look upto the university expert to acquire

•owle dge of the correct processes. And those experts themselves looked upto the

• called interna tional com mun ity of agric ultura l scientists to learn the latest on th e

lew technology .

1

i spar i t ies in growth

Vast dispa rity in gr ow th , from , crop to crop and from area to area, was an inbu ilt

sature of the new tech nolog y. W hile a few crops in a few areas show ed enormous

icrease in produ ction and prod uctiv ity, most of the crops and most of the cultiv ated

leas in the country stagnated, and perhaps actually deteriorated.

1) Crop to crop d ispar i ty :

We have already noticed that of the major foodg rain crops only wheat showe d an

•creased rate of gro wt h of produ ction and prod uctiv ity after 196 7-68 . To show this

•pa rity of gro wt h amongst various crops a little more concre tely, we have, in Table 3,

lisplayed the absolute figure s for the area, prod uc tion and yield etc., of the three main

oodgrain crops of India (viz ., rice, wh eat and pulses) f or every fi fth year since

1950-51.

•1950-51, of the total foodgrain production of 52.58 mT, 21.81 mT was rice, 6.34 mT

•heat and 8.33 mT pulses. In 1963 -64 , tow ards the end of the first phase of po st-ln de-

Bndence agriculture, foodgrain production had increased to 83.38 mT. Of this 36.17 mT

* Data in this para are taken from NCAR , Vo l. 2, p 79 and Economic Survey , GOI,

1980-81.

[** In conv entiona l economics, this increased dependence w ill appear as developm ent

of new link ag es' sh owing a positive effect on the overall Economy. But objectively,

what is really positive about loss of self-reliance of the agricultural sector ?

10 3



was rice, 10.96 mT wheat and 11.34 mT pulses. The production of the three crops had

thus increased at the same pace. In

1950-51,

rice, wheat and pulses formed 41.5, 12.1

and 15.8 per cent respectively of total foodgrains production, in 1963-64, their respective

share was 43.4, 13.1 and 13.6 per cent. The relative importance of the three crops in the

total foodgrain production of the country remained essentially unaltered, except for a

small decline in the share of pulses. Interestingly, though the area under wheat increased

at a faster rate than that under rice, the difference was made up by a higher growth of

yield in the latter. In

1970-71,

after the Green Revolution, however, we find wheat pro-

duction jumping from 10.96 mT to 23.44 mT, while rice moved from 36.17 mT to only

41.91 mT, and pulses remained static. The share of wheat in the total foodgrain produc-

tion rose from a mere 13 in 1963-64 to 22 at the cost of rice, pulses and other

crops.

While yield of rice and pulses remained almost unchanged, yield of wheat rose

by 62 . Of the 6.35 mha of additional area brought under irrigation 4.89 mha went

under wheat. The same trend continued in 1975-76. Of 3.65 mha of additional irrigated

area under foodgrains, wheat, accounted for 2.84 mha ; and of 6.41 mT of additional

foodgrains wheat accounted for 3.88 mT. Output of pulses remained unchanged, while

that of rice increased only slightly. All the benefits of growth thus went to the relatively

prosperous wheat areas, while paddy growers, who formed the vast majority of the small

cultivators were left to stagnate.

TABLE 3

Year*

1950-51

1955-56

1960-61

1963-64**

1970-71

HYV

1975-76

HYV

Area,

Production

Rice

Area

(Irr.)

30.38

(9.79)

31.19

(10.69)

34.21

(12.54)

35.65

(13.39)

37.68

(14.37)

5.78

38.63

(14.83)

13.07

Prod.

(Yield)

21.81

(718)

27.00

(866)

33.97

(993)

36.17

(1015)

41.91

(1112)

43.41

1124)

and Yield of various Foodgrain Crops

Wheat

Area

(Irr.)

9.66

(3.30)

11.44

(4.00)

13.29

(4.27)

13.50

(4.75)

18.00

(9.64)

6.42

19.79

(12.48)

12.3

Prod.

(Yield)

6.34

(656)

8.61

(753)

11.13

(837)

10.96

(812)

23.44

(1302)

27.32

(1380)

Pulses

Area

19.21

22.29

24.21

24.11

22.23

23.15

Prod.

(Yield)

8.33

(434)

10.87

(488)

12.09

(499)

11.34

(470)

11.53

(518)

11.47

(495)

Foodgrains

Area

(Irr.)

97.71

(17.91)

109.16

(20.26)

116.21

(22.11)

117.79

(23.56)

123.50

(29.91)

14.98

124.54

(33.56)

30.93

Prod.

(Yield)

52.58

(538)

68.23

(625)

80.47

(692)

83.38

(708)

104.36

(845)

110.77

(889)

*

All

figures refer

to

triennial averages with

the

year indicated

as the mid yea*.

Units

:

Area

in mha.

Production

in mT,

Yield

in

Kg/ha

* *

1963-64,

instead of 1965 -66 , has been chosen in order to avoid including the the two abnormal years

65-66 and 66-67 in the avarage

Source : Various issues of Estimates of Area and Produclion of Principal Crops in India, published by the

Directorate of Economic

Statistics.

HYV area is taken from Economic Survey, GOI,

1980-81 .

104



One reason for this imbalanced gro wt h between rice and whea t is simp ly

that the Western countries, where the new technology evolved, are no rice-pro-

ducers. Long back in 1820, Alexander Walker, while describing the failure of an

experiment to introduce English agricultural technolog y in an Indian vil lage, had

comm ented, inter alia, ' ...I t should also be we ll considered how far our agricul-

tura l process is suited to the cult ivat ion o f rice , the great crop of India, and of

wh ich we have no experience'. The problem is now solved simply by making

the great crop of India the less important.

However, the explanation of the phenomenon of the spurt in wheat produc-

tion does not lie merely in the fact th at the co untries whe re the technology was

developed are whea t producing countries. It was also convenient to increase

whea t production to meet the policy objectives w hich had in the first place led

to the acceptance of this techn ology . There already were areas, armo st surplus

in whe at, and we ll-l inked w ith the urban market econom y*. By increasing

whea t prod uction theref ore, it was easier to meet the policy objec tive of

brin-

ging more food to the urban m arket. Hence it seems no accident that o ut of the

10 mha of additional irrigation potential generated between 1 963-6 4 and 1975-7 6,

7.73 mha has gone to whea t areas. Wh at is more, the Governm ent has taken

pains to supply a favourable market to the wheat growers. Wh ile, the wheat

prices were maintained around the intern ationa l market prices, the price of rice

was kept substantially belo w the inter natio nal p rice. For instance, as Keith Griffin

(p .

170) notices , in early 197 8, ex-farm price of rice in India was $ 165 a to n,

less than half the U. S. price of $ 335 a ton , whic h also represented the inter-

nat iona l price, since USA is a major rice exp orte r**. On the other hand ex-

farm price of w heat at that time w as $ 135 a to n, compared to the US price of

$ 110 a t on * * * . The policy proved extremely successful. In January 1978, the

country had 18 mT of surplus stock of whea t, wh ile about 3 00 m il l ion people in

the country were below the poverty l ine, not having enough purchasing power

to eat the food that was lying surplus.

The decline in the gr ow th of pulses resulted from the same reasons that

caused the spurt in whea t. Pulses, gro wn largely in rain-fed cond itions, were not

* Notice that in 1950-51 total production of wheat in India was only 6.34 mT.

Incid enta lly, whe at is also the m ajor grain traded in the interna tional market.

In 1974, under-developed market econom y countries imported 31.2 mT of

wh eat and on ly 2.0 mT of rice. See Table 6.7 and 6.8 of Keith Griff in (1 97 9) .

Also see his tables 6.1 6.2 to get a profi le of the international whea t and

rice trade.

** Inciden tally, before the Green Rev oultion, Asia was a net rice exporter. After

the G reen Rev olution this region had become a net importe r. In 196 4,

18 1, 10 0 tons of rice was exported from Asia; in 1970 ,

1,135,000

tons of

rice w as imported into Asia.

** * Part of the reason for the higher dom estic price of whe at is perhaps to be

fou nd in the higher input costs of this crop because of the adop tion of the

new technology. (See, the section on costs.)

5



comm ercially v iable. And the countries derived their protein requirements from

meat procured throug h the expensive process of feeding good corn to cattle and

pigs *. In largely vegetarian India, howe ver, pulses form ed the main source of

proteins Yet the ava ilability of pulses per head per day continu ously dec lined ,

from 64.0 gms in 1962 , to 58.0 gms in 1 964 , 48 gms in 197 1, 45 gms in 1976

and only 40 grams in 19 79 **. The solution was seen in tryin g to teach the

Indians to change their food habits and shift to comm ercially more profitable

proteins. Let us give an example of the ridiculous ex tent to whic h the idea of

changing the food-h abits of Indians in a commercially favourable direction w as

carried. The Literacy House in India is a component of W orld Education Inc., a

corporation th at had, wit h the help of W orld Bank U SAID and some other mu lti-

national agencies, taken up the task of preparing the rural masses in the Third

W orld for Green Revo lution. This House in 1978 brought out an adult l iteracy

primer, "A ao Charcha Kare n". In that primer one finds the explicit mess age***.

Eating just rice has a bad effect on health.

Eat eggs to make up for protein deficiency.

So,

Indians were ma lnourishe d because they had the silly h abit of being vegetarians

If a com merc ializing s ociety fails to produce vegetarian proteins they should learn to

shift to other things.

(b) Area to area disparity

Wheat and rice in India are tradition ally g row n in different areas. The fact that

only wheat increased in production and productivity, already gives an indication that

the much vaster rice areas must have suffered stagnation after the Green Revolution.

Howe ver, we can form a clearer idea of the type of disparities that arose in HYV

and non-HYV areas by looking at Table 3 a little closely.

Let us start with the assumption that all increases in yield in 1970-71 were

due to the marginal produ ctivity of HYV and of irrigation at the official yardstick

of 0.5 t/ha,

(i.e.,

irrigating one hectare of land increases the out put by 0.5 t) ,

wh ich almost certainly is an underestimate. Now after sub tracting the contribution

of the marginal prod uctivity of irrigation from the produc tivities s how n in Table 3,

we find that from 196 3-64 to 197 0-71 produ ctivity of rice (after subtracting

the contribu tion of irrigation) rose from 827 Kg/ha to 922 Kg/ha and that of wheat

* The process is so expensive that non-veg etarian U.S.S.R., impo rts about 5 0 mT

of cereals every year to raise the dome stic av ailab lity of fo odg rains to about

a ton per capita per year. Vegetarian India can feed itself with jus t about

1/5 of a ton per capita.

** Triennial averages based on data in the Economic Survey, GOI,

1980-81.

** * Quoted from Ross Kidd and Krishna Kumar (19 81) . Ab out the aims of the

adult-l i teracy programme, launched by the W orld Bank etc., in late sixties,

in conjunction with Green Revolution, the authors have the following to say:

"T he purpose of the new program me wa s to cov er all aspects of a peasant's

l i fe that wou ld facil i tate his initiation into a consumer society; aspects such

as agriculture, health, sanitation, ferti l i ty and small-scale enterpreneurship..."

106



fro m 634 Kg/ha to 103 4 Kg/h a. If w e assign a ll this increase in marginal produc-

tiv ity of 1.12 t/ha for HYV whe at and 0.62 t/ha for HYV rice. For whe at this

implies tha t yields per hectare of unirrig ated , irrigated and HY V-irrigate d land

were 634 Kg/ha, 1134 Kg/ha and 2254 Kg/ha, respectively. The 1968-6 9 PEO

studies based on field data from HYV areas gave average yie ld of HYV wh eat as

256 0 Kg/ha (NCAR, V ol. 1, Table 4. 4). This means that our estimate of marginal

prod uctivity of HYV is a slight underestimate. It seems tha t the assump tion that

pro du ctiv ity in non-HYV areas remained unchanged is not entirely correc t, it may have

slig htly declined . Now let us look at the figures for 197 5-76 in Table 3. Once again

we subtract the contribution of irrigation from the entire production and obtain the

pro duc tivity of rice and whe at at 932 Kg/ha and 1065 Kg/ha, resp ectively. Interestingly

they are not at all different from the corresponding figures of 922 Kg/ha and 1034 Kg/ha

in 1970-71 . But the area under HYV rice had increased by 7.3 mha and that under

HYV -wheat by 5.9 mha, between 1970-71 and 19 75-76 . Where did all the expected

increase in prod uction from these addition al HYV areas go ? Some increase in

produ ctivity over the 1970-71 figures can be observed if instead of comparing 1970-71

yields wit h 1975-76 yields, we make the comparison w ith 1976 -77 yields to include an

abnorm ally good year 1977-7 8 in the average. (Prod uctivity, after subtracting

con tribu tion of irrigation of rice and whea t, then comes out to be 1018 Kg/ha and

1106 Kg/ha respec tively, w it h total HYV area under the two crops being 13.77 mha and

14.50 mha). Yet the marginal prod uctivity of additional HYV rice and whea t does not

approach anyw here near the earlier figures of 0.62 t/h a and 1.12 t/ha , wh ich themselves

seem underestimate d. One wa y to explain this phenomenon is to say tha t as HYV areas

we re expanded, all the necessary resources cou ld not be made available, and hence

add ition al HYV areas did not show appreciable response to the new tech nolo gy.

Altern atively, one must assume that produc tivity in the non-HYV areas had declined to

balance the increased pro du ctiv ity in HYV areas. In practice both these process are

likely to have operated. Since bringing an area under HYV involves consisderable

expen diture it is not likely to be done unless there is some correspond ing increase in

prod uctivity. What is more, the consumption of nitrogenous fertil izer almost doubled

between 1970-71 (1.37 mT) and 1975-76 (2.4 m T )~ an d this increased use of ferti l izer

must have produce d some response In the HYV areas. If the aggregate pro duc tivity

still did not sho w any appreciable improvem ent, the only plausible explanation seems to

be that as more and more resources got diverte d to HYV areas, the prod uctiv ity in

non-HYV areas actua lly declined. Micro-level studies wi l l be required to isolate the

detailed causes of this phenomenon, but the aggregate trend of declining produ ctivity

in non-HY V areas seems unmistakable. An d it is not very surprising . As prices rise all

around and even ordinary inputs become expensive, those whose inputs are not protected

by subsidies and those wh o do not gain by the increased prices of the outpu ts are likely

to stagnate and deteriorate.

To conclude this section,

then,

it is clear that no revolu tionary improvem ent in the

production and productivity of Indian Agriculture as a wh ole occurred w ith the so-called

Green Re volu tion . If anyth ing happened, it was that the rates of gr ow th of Indian

10 7



Agriculture declined. Wh at looked like a revolution wa s merely a spurt in the gro wt h

of a few comm ercially important foodgrains in a few areas wh ich were already surplus.

This gr ow th too was achieved at a very high co st of resources, and at the cost of an

enormously enhanced dependence of agriculture on external, often impo rted, inputs.

The increased costs pushed up prices all arou nd, and made the subsistence farmers

—

wh o were not protec ted by input subsidies and were not helped by higher outp ut

prices, since in any case, the y had no surpluses to sell—even more impove rished. The

yields in those subsistence farms cons eque ntly seem to have d eclined belo w the pre-

Green Re volu tion levels. From the urban -industrial perspective, howe ver, the change

was truly revolutionary. W ith the gro wth concentrated in already surplus areas more

and more food flowe d into the urban market and the Government kitty, and the urban

industrial sector became self-sufficient in food, even thou gh large numbers of p eople

still could not generate sufficient resources to get 2400 calories of food. (That is the

offici al pov erty line for rural areas and more than 300 millio n people are stil l belo w this

line). The improvement in the food availability in the urban-indu strial sector was in

fact so revolu tionary that to-da y the leading econom ists can already advise resistance

to the demands of surplus farmers for higher prices on the ground that w e do not need

more food. It is now being declared tha t the coun try has already lost enorm ously by

producing more food than wh at is necessary, that the prices of foodgrains should now

be kept low so that the surplus farmers are forced to more esse ntial comm ercial crops.

(See,

the many recent edito rials on this issue in the 'Tim&s of India ) 'A nd this at a time

whe n 300 million people in the country are still hungry These are the achievements of

this Green Rev olution* .

* Inciden tally the salient features of the Green R evolution— decline in the aggre-

gate gro wt h, increased production in localised areas at high costs of often

impo rted resources, dec line of produ ction in less favou red areas and co ntro l

of prod uctio n by a sma ll sector etc., are typica l features of all mod ern tech-

nologies. The theory and practice of modern science and modern tech nolog y

was evolved in the seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. The driving

concern of that evolution was-as clearly stated by Bacon, the prophet of the

Scientific and Industrial Revolution—simply power, power through control of

nature, of produ ction and necessarily of people. Resource efficienc y eco logica l

efficiency, distributive justice , etc., were nowhere in the minds of the people

' wh o '

initiated this development Al l ethical injunctions ensuring justice were

in fac t dismissed as obscu rantist nonsense wh ich the scientist or the techn o-

logist c ould have n othing to do. He was to expend all his energies in incre-

asing control—and hence profits. Justice and equality wo uld , it was assured, fol low

as a result of that singleminded search for power and control, |through some

inscrutable dialectic al process. Resource efficienc y, of cours e, was som ething

about wh ich the technologists of that era could not have cared much. A ll

the resources of the colonies were there to be take n, almost free, ti ll you

co uld devise processes tha t wil l consume these resources efficien tly or other-

w

j

s e

_ _

w

jt h in the mother country. It was under such conditions and such

considerations that the science and techno logy that we call modern, emerged

and it still carries its birthmarks w ith it. All the features of the Green Revo-

lution that we have noticed are obvious manifestations of these birthmarks,

108



111. ALTERNATIVES T O GREEN REVOLUTION

Was there an alternative to Green Revolution ? The answer to that question depends

upon wh at one expects a revolutio n in agriculture to achieve. If wh at is expected to be

achieved is only a steady flo w of foo d and resources to the urban market and the

Gove rnment stocks and industries , then Green Rev olution was perhaps the best wa y to

achieve it. The HYV tech nolo gy, wi th its high requirement of comme rcial resources, was

designed to be applicable to only those areas whic h were already surplus in

food.

By

mak ing these surplus areas more surplu s, it ensured that all add itiona l outputs w ill fin d

their way into the market. If, howev er, our expec tation fro m a revolu tion in agriculture

is tha t first of all it enables the millions of subsistence worke rs living below the poverty

line to produce their essential requireme nts, then of course there wo uld have been no

question of even considering the Green Revolution techn ology. In some form , our sub-

sistence farmers already had an 'altern ative ' to the Green Revolution techn ology . Even

a cursory, but sympathetic, study of their agriculture (w ith the above objec tive in view)

would have led to the conclusion that what was needed was not so much new technology

but immediate actio n to remove the various resource constra ints wh ich were put ting

tremend ous pressure on their agriculture—resources s uch as wo od (f ue l), manure, wate r,

fodder and of course land. However, any step in providing 'free'access to such

locally

available resources to our cultivator would have meant reversing the policy of achieving

'progres s', (the policy initiated by the British adm inistration), the policy of appropriating

all the resources our people for the 'industrial rev olut ions ' in the intern ation al and

nationa l metropo lises. Let us consider, for instance, tw o of the major requirements for

tra ditio na l agriculture : access to water and access of labour to land. As we s hall see

be low , Ind ia had, and still has, a vast untapped potential of these resources.

irrigation

:

Irrigation is the most important input for the traditional agricultural technologies, it

insures the farmer against the vagaries of the climate . It opens up the poss ibility of

mu ltiple croppin g. It considerably enhances the employm ent potential of the

land.

(And

it almost doubles the productivity of individual crops)*.

Costs of irrigation are diffic ult to w ork o ut because there is large varia tion from area

to area. For peninsular India, where irrigatio n costs are relative ly higher, Irrigation

Com mission in 1972 estim ated the cost of irrigating one hectare to be rough ly equivalen t

to the price of a quintal of foodgrains (NCA R, Vol. 1, p. 437), wh ich w ould give a return

* A comparison of data based on NSSO crop-cuttin g experiments for 19 70-71

and 1971-7 2 shows that compared to unirrigated crops, yields of irrigated

crops were higher by about 80 -95 % for paddy and 105 -115 % for wheat.

Acc ording to a statistical analysis based on aggregate crop-produ ction in

fiftie s, quo ted in NC AR, the differences in irrigated and unirriga ted yields were

1.28 ton /ha and 0.46 ton/h a respectively, for wh eat, and 1.47 ton /ha and

0.47 ton/ha for paddy. Official yardstick for the marginal procu tivity of

i rr i -

gation is, however, 0.5 ton/h a. (NCAR, Vol 1 , 437 -43 8).

10 9



of 5 quin tals of food grai n. On the other hand, as discussed earlier to bring one hectare

of crop under HYV costs 2-3 quinta ls of food grain s, and the return expected is about 10

quintals. Thus, in terms of economic efficiency, irr igation competes well w ith HYV cult i-

vat ion.

The pos sibility of develop ing this a lternativ e also existed as according to NCA

estimates, our country has enough water resources to irrigate 110 mha of crops, whereas,

in 196 5-6 6, the year before HYV crop was launche d, the gross irrigated area was

32.2mha.

Since mid-sixties, some additional irrigation facilities have of course been generated.

But it has been seen as only one of the inputs in the HYV Techn ology and the stress has

been on prov iding more irrigatio n in those areas wh ich already had irrigatio n and had

adopted new technolo gy. This is obvious from the fact that of the additional 10mha of

foodgrain crops brought under irr igation between 1 963-6 4 and 197 5-76 , 7.73 mha wen t

to the major HYV crop, and on ly 1.44 mha to the vaster rice crops (Table 3 ). Besides,

the massive schemes of modern irrigation being launch ed in India has proved to be

problematic in various respects.

How ever, one can conceive of alternative strategies for irriga tion . In our coun try

irr igation has traditionally been the responsibility of the commu nity and the state. Tradi-

tion ally, 'non-co nven tional' ways of generating irr igation using commun ity labour and

locally available materials have been used. Such a system of irrigation would be cheaper.

More imp ortant, it cou ld benefit small and marginal farmers—put their agriculture on

sound fo ot ing , instead of making it economically unviable as the Green Revolution

technolog y has done. Such an irr igation will make all the difference between prosperity

and hunger, between a living thriving culture and stagnation.

Access

of labour

to land

Besides irrig atio n, the other major prerequisite of traditio nal agricu lture is labour.

Productivity of this type of agriculture depends largely upon the amount of labour

that the farmer is will in g to or is capable of putting in. This fact is confirmed by the

w e l l -

known observation that almost everywhere in the Third World, small farms, even farms of

size less than one hectare, on wh ich labour is necessarily intense , are able to obtain

much higher productivities than larger farms. The first series of form management studies

carried out in 1954 -57 (NCAR,

V o l . 1 ,

Appendix 4.1) brought out the fact that the

differenc e between the gross yut pu t per hectare of the smallest and largest size groups

was always more than 3 0% , except in U. P. and Maharastra (Akola and Amrava ti

distric ts), where the districts studied were largely under cash crops, and

in Orissa whe re the pro duc tivity w as rather low irrespective of the size.

In Tam il Nadu (Salem and Coim batore) the difference was as large as 17 0% , in

Maharastra (Nasik) 109 %, in And hra Pradesh (West Godavari District) and Punjab

(Ferozepu

M

and Amritsar) around 40% . Similar data on other Third W orld countries

(eg.

Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan etc.) is available in Keith Griff in (1979 ). That the

smaller hr ld ing s were able to utilize the available resources much better, is also clear

from data found in 1971 Agricu lture Census qu oted in NCAR, Vol. 1, Table 4.1 and

4.2 (see table 4) . Out of 33.8 mha comm anded by holdin gs less than 2ha, 30mha was

sown,

7.7 mha of it more than once, giving a cropping intensity of 125. Holdings of

11 0



size less than one hectare, fared even better w it h croppin g intensities of 134 and 123

resp ective ly for u nirrigated and irrigate d land, wh ile holding s of size greater than

10ha sow ed, achieved cropping intensity of only 109. Another study carried out at

the AN S Institute for the Kosi Comm and Area in Bihar (Prasad 197 2, quo ted in NCAR,

Vol .

II , pp 37-38 ) shows the foll ow ing . On introduction of irr igation , whereas large

farms (greater than 8ha) irriga ted , during Rabi season, only 26 .5% of the area irri-

gated during Kharif, this ratio was 102 .5% for small forms in size group 0-8 ha. Yet,

acco rding to the 1971 census, the most was teful of farmers (of size greater than 10ha)

commanded 30 % of the total area, whereas small efficient farms (w ith operational

ho ldin g less than half the average size) comm anded only 9% of the total area.

TABLE 4

S ize - w ise D is t r i bu t i on o f A r ea

Size Group

0-1 ha

1-2 ha

2-4 ha

4-10ha

> 10ha

Total

Number of

Operational

Holdings

(millions)

35.68

13.43

10.68

7.93

2.77

70.49

Area

(mha)

14.54

19.29

30.00

48.23

50.07

162.13

Net Area

Sown

(mha)

13.00

17.01

20.25

40.93

38.64

135.83

Gross Area

Sown

(mha)

16.93

20.81

31.33

46.72

42.26

153.05

Sou rce : Agric ultura l Census of India 1971

Wh at is therefore urge ntly needed is land-reform s. Land to the tiller wo uld not

on ly result in an increase in agricu ltural prod uctio n, but also the increase wi ll be nefit the

small farmers, who need it most. The Green Revoltuion technolog y, howev er, is

chang ing all t his *. The small farms are being made com mercially unvia ble, whereas,

the larger farms , w ith access to this tech nol ogy are produ cing more and earning

profits. W ith the new technolo gy, "Lan d to the til l er " may not be capable of

con tributin g to increase in p roduc tivity. The demand is losing force.

Howe ver, if the objec tives are to improve the liveliho od of our people, improv ing

the access of labour to the land by redressing this skewed dist ribu tion throu gh land

reforms, and improving the availability of water, clearly offered a va st potential fo ra

* Green Revolution by making comm ercial cultivation wi th new technology

econ omic ally more viable (at the cost of subs idies and price supports) seems

to have partially neutralized the advantage o f the sm all farms. Thus in Punjab

(Ferozepur) wh ole the farms above 20.0 ha show ed the lowe st gross out put per

hectare of all sizes in 1 954 -57, in 19 37-70 , farms of 24.0 ha and above showed the

highes t outp ut of a sizes. Howe ver, in most of the coun try the small farms st ill

retain their advantage (NCAR, V ol. 1, 431).

111



widespread and genuinely revolutionary improvement in agricultural production and

product iv i ty .*

This was an obvious alternative to the Green Revolution driven by a new, expensive

and elitist technology. In fact, the existence of this alternative is well k now n to

anyone who has any knowledge of agriculture. The National Commission on Agric ul-

ture (19 74 ) itself had recognised t h a t ' small farms as a class are more efficien t

units of production compared to large farms when considered from the point of view

of productivity and employm ent pote ntial.' It had also recognised that providing

wate r to these small farms , 'wou ld have by and large solved their problem s'. If

inspite of that a choice was made in favour of a techn ology that improved the fate of

only already surplus farmers and yet did not accelerate agricultu ral gr ow th , then it

can only be surmised that solving the problems of small farmers was not the most

important po licy-objective. That in a commercial society, the 'poin t of view of pro-

duc tivity and employment po ten tia l ' is not the correct point of view .

By b ringing out the viabil i ty of the non-techno logical alternative, w e do not

wish to imply that in agriculture no technological change w il l ever be required.

But it seems that technological changes which w il l emerge from we ll-fed farmers

wi th a view to improve their ow n lot wi l l have to be qualitatively different from the

techn ological changes advocated by elite prac titioner of the Baconian science of

con trol wit h a view to comm ercial v iab ility . The analysis above makes us agree

w ith Lappe and C ollins (1977 ) that, 'Once it is manipulated by people, nature loses

its neutrality. Elite research institutes w ill produce seeds that wo rk perfectly w ell

for a privilege d class of comm ercial farmers. Genetic research that involves ordinary

farmers w ill produce seeds tha t are^useful to the m ' (p. 12 3). An d also, perhaps, a

Genetic 'Science th at inco rporates the ir view of natu re'. But then ordinary farmers

in trad ition al cultures have been carrying ou t such research for centuries.

J. K. Bajaj

Bombay Group

Such revolutiona ry change in agricultural produc tivity throu gh improved access of

labour to land and improved water control is not merely a pipe-dream, as was shown

in Kampuchea during the few years of that i l l-fated revolu tion. Using these tw o

resources to the utm ost, the Kampucheans were able to ensure 312 kgs of

rice per cap ita by 1 977, in a situation w here all experts had been predicting

major famines. They had used only green and com post-m anures , vegetable insecti

cides and cattle power. Their belief in the workability of traditional agriculture was so

strong that Khieu Samphan had declared in 1977 that , "T he cattle and buffalo are

our closest comrades -in-arms in the national building camp aign. If our cattle work

hard, we can build our cou ntry r ap idly ." For an excellent review of the Kampuchean

experiment see Caldw ell (197 9) and reference cited there in, especially Hrldebrand

and Porter (1976).

11 2



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11 3

Documents

Bajaj, JK Green Revolution