Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the commercialization of a complicated, hybrid seed, meant that farmers
would have to buy new seeds every year.
After years of scientific experimentation, the national government fa-
cilitated the spread of Green Revolution technologies throughout India.
It subsidized inputs such as fertilizer, funded large infrastructure projects
to provide water for irrigation, and promoted the purchase, planting, and
growth of HYV wheat.26 Foundations trained legions of agricultural sci-
entists, and together with the government they set up several agricultural
research stations throughout the country, to disseminate scientific knowl-
edge about hybrid seeds, inputs, and farm machinery. Scientists and pol-
icy makers encouraged farmers to buy new HYV wheat each growing sea-
son (as opposed to saving seeds) so that they could continue to produce
high yields of wheat on a regular basis. Indeed, wheat yields in India in-
creased rapidly and dramatically, and they are estimated to have doubled
soon after the rollout of the program. By 1972 wheat production in the
country had reached twenty-six million tons.27 Just as officials had hoped,
the rate of food production surpassed the rate of population growth.28
India soon also became one of the largest producers and consumers of
chemical fertilizers in the world.29
As a system of agriculture, the Green Revolution prioritized maximiz-
ing grain yields and increasing agricultural productivity. These political
priorities were the outcome of an ever-present worry over how to feed a
growing population, as well as the desire of the Indian nation to become
independent from food aid. Supporters of the Green Revolution also ar-
gued that by increasing agricultural outputs through advanced technol-
ogy and scientific knowledge, India could develop an international ad-
vantage in agriculture and maintain foreign currency reserves as a result
of agricultural exports.
The Green Revolution also represented the aspiration to beter and
more efficiently control nature and natural processes to promote indus-
trialization. As environmental scholar John Perkins notes of similar pro-
cesses elsewhere: “Higher production efficiencies, in turn, could feed into
an ever-growing economy by either 'freeing up' or 'pushing out' labor
from agriculture into the new factory system, thus creating further in-
