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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Green Revolution may not have been that revolutionary: Data -Rema Nagarajan

Green Revolution may not have been that revolutionary: Data -Rema Nagarajan

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published Published on Sep 27, 2013   modified Modified on Sep 27, 2013
-The Times of India


The Green Revolution is said to have revolutionised agriculture in India and helped the country achieve self-sufficiency in food production. However, government data shows more or less the same rate of growth of yields for various crops from 1951 to about 1990 suggesting that the 'revolution' might not have been as momentous as it is believed to be.

agriculture

In the India Rural Development Report 2012-13, released on Thursday, the average annual growth rate in yield per hectare for different crops shows that the Green Revolution period (1968-1980) showed 3.3% growth in yield per hectare for wheat compared to 3.7% before it and 3.6% in the decade following. The 2.7% growth rate for rice yields during the Green Revolution compared to 3.2% before and 3% after it.

The relatively low growth in yield in what has been defined as the Green Revolution period here can partly be attributed to the choice of years, explained Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen. "This period includes two years, 1972-73 and 1979-80, which were very bad years for agriculture," he pointed out. If these years are excluded, the growth rates for the period would certainly look better, he said. Also, if the period were to be taken from 1967-68 rather than from 1968-69, it would make a difference since 1967-68 was a year of high growth following a bad year in 1966-67.

However, Sen added, what the data does show is that the Green Revolution did not have as big an impact, seen in a pan-Indian context, as it is generally believed to have had. It was when it was extended to more areas in the 1980s that the impact was really felt.

Sen pointed out that the period from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s was really the worst in this regard. The reasons for that, he felt, was a "general neglect of agriculture" by the government. This included a decline in public investment in the sector, the weakening of extension services and so on. "As the data shows, once that neglect was reversed post-2004-05, growth picked up once again," he said.

In the decade from 1997 to 2006, the growth rate in yield per hectare plummeted for every crop barring cotton, which showed a huge increase in growth rate since 2002, from -6.2% growth rate to a whopping 19.4%, which could be due to the introduction of BT cotton.

The significance of public spending on agriculture is evident in the marked improvement in growth rate of yield per hectare for almost every crop from the mid-2000s with a gradual increase in public spending on agriculture from a mere 2% of agricultural GDP in early 2000 to over 3% by 2005-06.


The Times of India, 27 September, 2013, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Green-Revolution-may-not-have-been-that-revolutionary-Data/articleshow/23131108.cms


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