Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
international development organizations, and scientists championed the
Green Revolution as a solution to India's ongoing problems with famines,
food shortages, and dependence on foreign food aid. This effort to in-
dustrialize farming also aligned well with the shift toward market-
based
agriculture that British colonial rule had imposed on India between the
mid-
nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. W hile yields initially im-
proved, over forty years after India's Green Revolution began, incidents
of pesticide poisoning, farmer suicides, and even reports of yield declines
in crops other than staple grains also increased, leading to an agrarian
crisis in India.
Kerala's agricultural community acutely experienced this agrarian
crisis in the late 1990s and 2000s. The state suffered hundreds of farmer
suicides, fungal diseases in black pepper vines, deteriorating coffee pro-
duction, and endosulfan poisoning. All four of these problems were the
outcome of intensive chemical use encouraged by market-driven agricul-
tural policies at the state and national levels.
In promoting the Green Revolution, India's government was trying
to solve a long-standing problem of food insecurity. Famine has been a
common occurrence in the country's history. Between twelve and thirty
million people are estimated to have died of starvation in India from 1876
to 1902. Crop failures caused by erratic monsoon rains contributed to the
widespread hunger and malnutrition during these years. However, histo-
rians have argued that British colonialism exacerbated the effects of these
environmental conditions.8
The Indian subcontinent, which includes modern-day Bangladesh,
Pakistan, and India, was a British colony from 1858 to 1947. The British
colonial government imposed several social and economic changes in
the region that led to food insecurity and famines during El Niño years
around the turn of the twentieth century.9 To transform the subconti-
nent's agrarian economy into one oriented toward markets and exports,
British officials used taxation, debt, and enclosure (the privatization of
lands previously held in common) to force locals to grow wheat and cot-
ton on a large scale, instead of growing a diversity of staple food crops
such as pulses, as they had before.10 Thus, the structure of agriculture
