Question

Explain the contribution of government in the development of Indian Agriculture.

Answer 1

Agricultural Development in India:

The term ‘Green Revolution’ refers to a sus­tained and continuous increase in agricultural pro­ductivity or a yield per acre take-off in traditional agriculture.

The stress is on intensive rather than extensive cultivation so as to raise productivity per hectare. It signifies a shift to the agricultural production function and the consequent increase in land productivity, i.e., yield per hectare.

The new strategy has two broad components the mechanical (or technological) package and the biological package. The former refers to the use of tractors, combines and other forms of machinery primarily as substitutes for labour. The latter refers to the raising of yields through the use of improved plant varieties such as hybrid corn or the new vari­eties of rice developed at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

Because of the dramatic effects on yields of some of those new varieties the phenomenon is often referred to as the Green Revolution. But these new varieties raise productivity (yield) if they are combined with adequate and timely supply of water and addi­tional usage of chemical fertilisers. The main im­pact of biological package is to raise yields.

The stress is on using improved plant varieties in com­bination with fertilisers and pesticides to raise yields of rice or wheat. The founding of the Inter­national Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CINMYT) in Mexico and IRRI in the Philippines marked the beginning of a truly international ef­fort to develop high-yielding varieties (HYV) of grains suitable to the tropical conditions found in most of the LDCs.

The result has been a steady stream of new, high-yielding and other improved varieties of wheat and rice that have found growing accept­ance in most Asian countries.

This was supported by a rapid increase in the use of chemical fertilisers. By the 1970s, chemical fertilisers were in widespread use in India, Brazil and other countries. Unlike machinery, chemical fertilisers are highly divisible because they can be purchased in any quantity. Moreover, the applica­tion of a small dose of fertiliser is likely to raise productivity appreciably.

A key component of the biological package is water. Improved plant varieties using more chemical fertiliser lead to dramatically higher yields only when there is an adequate and timely water supply. In India, rainfall is often inadequate or comes at the wrong time. As a result efforts to raise yields have focused on measures to extend irrigation systems so that crops are not dependent on the vagaries of the weather.

The increased inputs from the biological packages has made possible steady expansion of agricultural output. By contrast the main function of the mechanical packages is to release surplus labour and food for transferring the same to more productive activities.