Green Revolution in India, success or failure.

Jorge Orozco
International Bachelor program of Agribusiness (IBPA) 2013

The Failure of the Green Revolution in India:

1) Introduction
Since the beginnings of the original idea of the improvement of agriculture, how to improve yields output,
how to make crops more resistant to certain pests, and generally how to improve food security around the
world, it has been a long way, and now we have the positive and negative experience, that we should
certainly learn about. The following article is about the green revolution occurred in India, and exploring the
origin of the same, the original goal, the advantages and disadvantages of the implementation of new
technology as an aid for the food production on a starving country. I will try to be as objective as possible,
after researching several studies, articles, and real cases of study of what occurred in India, in the beginning,
and nowadays. At the end I hope we can briefly and clearly understand what is happening in our world, and
why should be aware of what is happening, as it may affect our present and future.
2) The history of the Green Revolution on the world and India
First of all, I think it is important to define what we know what is the so called Green Revolution. This
movement has its roots on the 1960s, when the world was facing several problems and threats to the global
food security, especially in Asia and Latin America. Several organizations, as the Rockefeller and Ford
Foundations, recurred to Norman Borlaug, a Norwegian-American Scientist, who lead a team in Mexico,
making research since 1940s of new varieties of wheat, that were resistant to the Wheat Rust. Borlaug
identified an issue on wheat and rice crops, once the farmers put so many fertilizer, that the plant will grow
as big as it can, the heaviness of the grains will eventually lead to make the plant fall. Making cross breeding
with semi dwarf varieties of Japan, the resultant new hybrid crop, was shorter and could get more weight on
grains without lodging. This new hybrid varieties, also known as High-Yield-Varieties (HyV) were
significantly more resistant to the use of fertilizers and pesticides, ( more inputs ) which is traduced in more
outputs on the harvest.
In India, there was a really tough situation. The country after his independence in 1947, depended on
imports and especially with the increasing population, the traditional food production has been outpaced,
depending mainly on the monsoon season for irrigation and manual labor was required. Also political
situations made the situation worst for India, as after its revolution, a new industrialization age was
promoted, leaving behind the agricultural sector. India was obliged to import as much as 10 million tons of
food (mainly wheat) for the two years ( Green Revolution in India and Its Significance in Economic
Development :Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa, by Koichi Fujita )

Green Revolution in India, success or failure.

Jorge Orozco
International Bachelor program of Agribusiness (IBPA) 2013

The first waves was mainly characterized by the introduction of new varieties of wheat from Dr. Norman
Borlaug, which need to receive more agricultural inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, water irrigation etc) , and can
actually produce higher yields, and in less than a decade India was in the way of being a self sustainable
country. In the second wave several new crops (HYVs) has been introduced, but the most important was the
HYV variety of rice.
3) Green Revolution in India, and its Failures
At the beginning the green revolution in India was a success, with the increasing of the yield output, and
making, for first time in his history, a self sustainable nation. But this came with a price: the use of this new
chemicals and irrigations systems put a

lot of pressure on farmers, trying to keep up on the yield

productions, as this new varieties needed more water, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The result of
making this change on the traditional agricultural system had several negative impacts, on farmers life, who
had not enough money to afford the required mechanized machines, fertilizers, seeds, etc, and, those farmers
were left behind by the big farmers, creating a bigger bridge between poor and wealthy people. Also even
the farmers that could afford the requirements for this new technology, they had negatives impacts, as
sometimes they had to borrow a lot of money from the bank to pay the new equipment, putting their lands
as a guarantee of the loan, if the harvest was not good, or they couldnt keep up on the production, they
could lose everything they have saved their entire lifes. Another negative impact is that made those farmers
(as an example in Punjab) way more dependant on the multinational Agrichemicals companies, who took all
the control on the green revolution. There is Also the environment factor, as this new HYV varieties needed
more imputs, such as water, fertilizer, and other chemicals, this gradually degraded the soil, leaving it
without the necessary micronutrients to have a healthy grow. Nowadays the farmers are experiencing lower
yields production as the result of the degradation of the soil, and to the fact that every day is more difficult to
get water for the exigent irrigation requirements A big part of the failure of the Green Revolution is
because it didnt attack the roots of the starvation problem, and in India is every day more difficult to keep
the food production high, because of the degradation of the environment and because of the harsh conditions
that the farmers lives. The biggest failure of the Green revolution in India (and maybe around the world) is
what I think that they didnt make this system sustainable, it was perfectly design to produce amazing
amounts of food in short time, and in the minimum possible land, but they didnt realize of the real cost of
this.
4) Case of study: The real Cost of the Not that Green Revolution.
After researching on several websites, videos, articles, histories about the green revolution in India, every of
this had a common denominator: We need a second Green revolution, a real Green Revolution. As
exposed in the previous part of this paper, the yields production is now decreasing due to several factors as
poor and exhausted soil, not enough water, overuse of pesticides, which is traduced to a lower income for the

Green Revolution in India, success or failure.

Jorge Orozco
International Bachelor program of Agribusiness (IBPA) 2013
farmers. As an example, Farmers are also faced with higher costs due to hybrid and GM seeds needing to be
repurchased every year; whereas with conventional seeds they were able to save seeds and reuse them the following
harvest. These factors place the farmer under financial strain, and since there are few legitimate finance lenders,
many typically turn to loan sharks. The inability of farmers to pay off their loan leads to the tragic act of suicide, with
statistics from 2011 revealing that the rate of suicide for farmers was 47% higher than the overall Indian population.

Also there have been cases where we can find that the overuse of pesticides can lead to serious health
problems. Some chemicals are also available in dangerously high concentrations such as Organophosphorous.().
In Punjab, the home of the Green Revolution, scientists have found that the villages using higher amounts of pesticides
are also the ones with higher rates of cancer (source: http://www.wdm.org.uk )

The real cost of this technological movement is really high, and is not calculated with money, the bigger cost
is the human cost, even if we have enough food in the world, it is not available for millions of starving
people, we are degrading our soils, and increasing the bridge between the farmers and the, everyday bigger,
multinational companies that created the dependency on the use of their products. The problem of not
making the world food production sustainable, it is also the weaknesses of the social systems, creating a
cycle of poverty, malnourishment can star before even born, as the mother cant afford additional food to
fulfill the necessary nutrients of pregnancy, this can lead to a kid born weak and with a weak immune
system, and if this kid cannot get the sufficient amount of vitamins and nutrients can even affect the
memory, and learning abilities, and probably in their adult life as a result of this cycle, he would not be able
to maintain his family, and the cycle repeats
In some parts on the south of India, several farmers are moving to a more sustainable system, and adopting
organic models for its production, as how to use insects and other types of plants to reduce or completely
avoid the use of any chemical, and they are founding that this are viable models, producing a good quantity
and better quality. By making the agriculture sustainable, means also that the communities can be selfsufficient, without depending on big companies to make money, it means taking care of the environment so
we can preserve the valuable soil that we need to grow our food, not just for a few decades, instead we can
preserve it for the future of our world.
5) References.
Rashid Faridi, 2010. Indias Green Revolution:Successes, Failures and Second Green Revolution,
BBC News , 2007 The limits of a Green Revolution?
Koichi Fujita, 2010, Green Revolution in India and Its Significance in Economic Development
:Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa
Jason Taylor, 2011, Not a very Green revolution documentary
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhsy4VAMmiw)