Green Revolution or Greed Revolution?

When the first rays of Sun rising on the horizon on 15th August 1947 were touching the Indian soil the words of Nehru's famous speech “Tryst with Destiny” were still echoing in the ears of many who were now the citizens of Independent India it was not all the gaiety which normally would have gone with this historic event. The riots were breaking out killing millions in India and Pakistan. As if this was not enough the dooms day prophets were predicting that Indians had no future unless a Thermo Nuclear Bomb kills them. Some others said “Indians will die like – sheep’s going to slaughter house, and they were perhaps not wrong. The country was under pressure. We were importing 10 million tonnes of wheat to feed a population of 450 million at the time of Independence. Whether India would survive this crisis was a big challenge.

The Government of the day responded to this challenge by planning major irrigation projects like Bhakharanangal and DVC (Damodar Valley Corporation). Lot of money were also spent on fertilizers to provide higher quantities of Nutrients. Despite all this India heavily depended on imports of wheat under PL 480. There was stagnation in terms of yield levels. Indians in true sense were “Sheep to mouth”. Things did not improve till late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi approached this issue to transform India from a famine - stricken nation to a food surplus nation. The Troikaa who can be credited to realize this dream were legendary Dr. Swaninathan, American Agronomist Norman Borlaug and the erstwhile Union Minister for Agriculture C. Subramaniam. The result of their success was like – Developing new strains of high yielding variety – HYV seeds mainly Wheat and Rice but also millet and corn. A record grain output of 131 million tonnes was achieved by 1978-79. With this India converted her from a “Port to Mouth Nation to One of the World's largest Agriculture Producer”.

Dr. Swaminathan says - “Food security and National sovereignty are interlinked. We could not have helped Bangladesh or Vietnam or done Pokharan, if we did not have food as you can stand any sanctions but not food”.

India has come a long way since then producing around 270 million tonnes of food grains. India is also second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world and the first in Milk production. The Green Revolution and the success of operation flood made this possible. The population in India would surge to 1.7 billion by 2050 pushing up the food requirement to 377 million tonne. An increase of over 100 million tonne in next 35 years. A major challenge India would face defending her “Food Security”.

One of the major hurdles in the way of increasing the Agriculture Production substantially is the issue of fragmentation of the Agriculture land holdings. As per the agriculture census 2010-11 the percentage of marginal and small farmers has gone up from around 70 per cent in 1970-71 to 85 per cent in 2010-11. Worst still is 67 per cent of the landholdings in 2010-11 averaged 0.39 Hectare.

AVERAGE SIZE OF LAND HOLDING

Source: Agriculture Census Database (DAC), National Informatics Centre (NIC),

* Indian Council of Agriculture Research, Vision 2030 report

It is projected that the average size of landholding which is currently around 1.1 Hectare will be drastically reduced to 0.3 Hectare as predicted in the Vision 2030 Report by ICAR. Because of this near 99 per cent of the farmers would be pushed into the category of a Marginal Farmer.

The average size of landholding getting exponentially decreased would mean the following :–

(a) Almost 99 per cent of the farmers becoming Marginal Farmers by 2030.

(b) Their income from Agriculture alone will push them below poverty line.

(c) Because of the sheer size of the fragmented landholding the agriculture has a stand above economic activity would become non-viable forcing the farmers to look for alternative avenues for survival. If required even totally leaving the Agriculture.

(d) It needs to be emphasized that despite being less than 20 per cent contributory to the GDP agriculture remains a major employment provider and main stay for the Rural Economy. It is an established fact that with the maturing of the economy agriculture workers move away from this Low Productivity Sector to Higher Productivity Sector. What is worry some is that the size of agricultural work force is reducing despite the increase in the size of total work force in the Country. A comparison across two time periods 2004-05 and 2011-12 indicates that the share of agricultural work force in total work force declined from 56.7 per cent to 48.8 per cent. Needless to say such a steep decline would create a huge issue of unemployment in the rural areas. 

(e) As a result both Farmers and Agricultural Labor would be forced to migrate to Urban Centers loading the already cracking Urban Infrastructure.

Another worry some factor is the finding of the NSSO survey which says that 45% of the Indian Farmers (If given the chance) would not want to continue farming. One of the major reasons being the Agriculture no more remains a lucrative or even self-sustaining activity.

May be this is at the root of comparatively prosperous communities like Jats in Haryana, Patidars in Gujarat, Gujjars in Rajasthan and the most recently Marathas in Maharashtra taking to streets demanding a Reservation Quota in Government Jobs. These are not the cast or community agitations. One should view this as a quest for survival by the farmer community which is increasingly being pushed closer to or even below poverty line. Primafacie these agitations may appear to be community driven however the malaise is far more depruted.

India needs to Engineer another Green Revolution to defend the food security. This could be possible relying upon;

(a)  Technology for providing a quantum jump in yield.

(b)  Services like – Electricity and Water

(c)   A pragmatic public policy for effective marketing to provide remunerative prices to the farmer.

(d)  The whole hearted participation of the most important stake holder – farmers.

       45% farmers given the opportunity would not want to continue farming is a very very serious warning signal.

Can we enact another Green Revolution?

Dr. Hegde, BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune says While the first Green Revolution was to ensure food security as there was severe scarcity of food in the country, the second Green Revolution should aim at creating sustainable livelihood security for the poor and eradication of poverty by generating gainful self-employment. The second Green Revolution should be to promote production by the masses and focus on generation of employment for the small and marginal farmers and the landless, while enhancing agricultural production. As these families mostly own degraded and low fertile lands, deprived of irrigation, the effort should be for efficient use of such lands.

Dr. Swaminathan's concern when he who says “Today public policy projects itself as pro-farmer but it does it half-heartedly. Also Agriculture land is under attack all the time. Land is a shrinking asset. It goes for Housing, Roads, Everything. The GDP may be growing but the contribution of Agriculture to GDP is going down. On the other hand people dependent on Agriculture however are growing in number. So people are getting poorer not because of poor productivity but because plot sizes got reduced” merits a serious attention.

Dr. Swaminathan remarks “The future belongs to the countries with grains and not guns. Because you can purchase guns, but not grains”.

In an interview asked a point blank question -”So, you don't believe there will ever be another Green Revolution?” His rather blunt answer “Never”.

The reason he sights “So much can be done. But what you see is the Adarsh and Black Money scams. Since, there is so much greed revolution in the country there will be no Green Revolution”.