Need for Green Revolution 2.0
Context:
The Green Revolution, hailed as a transformative achievement that saved India from famine and dependence on foreign aid, is now revealing its unintended consequences in various forms.
More on News
- What was once a cornerstone of agricultural success has now become a source of multifaceted crises, including inefficient power supplies, water scarcity, deteriorating soil health, air pollution, and a burgeoning culture of subsidies.
- These challenges, deeply rooted in policies designed to incentivise high-yield wheat and rice production, have placed the government in a complex bind.
The Burden of MSP and Market Distortions
- MSP: One of the Green Revolution’s flagship measures, the Minimum Support Price (MSP), was initially designed to shield farmers from exploitation by private traders.
- Regular Hikes: Over time, however, regular MSP hikes—often driven by powerful farm lobbies—have turned it into a maximum support price, with the government purchasing 33-40% of the country’s wheat and rice output annually.
- Biased: While this system has primarily benefited large landholders, small and subsistence farmers, who make up 80% of the agricultural population, remain largely excluded from these gains.
- Reforms: Attempts to reform the agricultural market in 2020, including deregulating mandis and introducing contract farming laws, were met with fierce protests.
The Green Revolution (1940s-1960s)
The Green Revolution transformed agriculture by introducing high-yielding crop varieties (HYVs), mechanisation, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and improved irrigation. It significantly boosted food production e.g. wheat production surged from 12 million tonnes in the 1960s to over 55 million tonnes by the 1970s. However, it also caused environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and socioeconomic disparities.
Green Revolution 2.0
This modern phase of agricultural innovation focuses on sustainable practices, precision agriculture, climate-resilient crops, and integrated farming systems. By reducing chemical inputs, leveraging technology, and promoting biodiversity, Green Revolution 2.0 aims to enhance food security while addressing environmental and equity concerns. It seeks a balance between productivity and sustainability for long-term agricultural resilience.
Water, Power, and Soil: A Crisis of Inputs
- Long-Term Problems: The Green Revolution’s reliance on heavily subsidised inputs like water, power, and fertilizers has created long-term ecological and financial problems.
- In states like Punjab and Haryana, incentives have driven the cultivation of water-intensive paddy, a crop ill-suited to the region’s natural ecology.
- Stubble Burning: Post-harvest stubble burning, an unintended consequence of delayed paddy planting to align with monsoons, has become a seasonal environmental disaster, choking the NCR with pollution.
- Urea: Similarly, an overreliance on urea—encouraged by skewed fertilizer subsidies—has led to nutrient imbalances in the soil, reducing grain productivity and causing environmental harm.
The Free Power Dilemma
- Free or subsidised electricity for agriculture, a policy born out of the Green Revolution, has left state-owned power distribution companies (discoms) in financial disarray.
- These entities, unable to recover costs or upgrade infrastructure, face mounting losses, leading to frequent power outages that hurt both agriculture and industry.
- Despite multiple bailout packages from the central government, no political leader has dared to address the root cause of the issue, fearing backlash from voters.
The Future of Farming
- Despite extensive support, farming has become increasingly unviable for small-scale farmers, many of whom struggle with shrinking returns.
- Periodic government interventions to control agricultural trade further erode profitability.
- In response, the present government introduced a popular direct subsidy of ₹6,000 annually for farmers, but like other Green Revolution-era policies, withdrawing this support seems politically impossible.
Addressing these issues requires bold reforms, careful planning, and a willingness to rethink entrenched policies—tasks that demand both political courage and public understanding.
