Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
However, helping to keep a rising population alive is not enough to promote
development. In the LDCS, as in the early development of Japan in this century,
agricultural surpluses were useful contributors to savings by the nation and by
farmers, later invested in services and industries. In India this has not been
possible, despite the introduction of “green revolution” technology. “Green
revolution” technology, the use of high-yielding varieties (HYVS) of certain
crops, and their combination with fertilizers and ideal watering to produce high
yields, has been criticized mostly in terms of its divisiveness between rich and
poor farmers, the latter being unable to afford the expensive inputs such as
fertilizers and herbicides needed to grow such crops. But we might note Lipton's
study (1989) showing a high level of adoption amongst poor farmers. The use of
HYVS was certainly divisive through being usable only in certain areas. The
best wheat area is that of the northwest, in the states of Punjab, Haryana and
western Uttar Pradesh. HYVS were found for rice, which extended the area of
application, but for the flooded areas of the deltas and the dry areas of the
interior, there were no easy adoptions.
Perhaps more importantly than any critique of the “green revolution” or other
farming and rural programmes, is the fact that farming and rural development
has had little effect in stimulating the development of the economy generally.
Throughout the Independence period, production has been more or less enough
to meet demands. At no time was there a crisis on a scale big enough to redeploy
resources and concentrate on any specific strategy. No major cash crops have
been able to command strong support to the stage of starting exports and
bringing in foreign exchange, which might have been put into local wealth and
thus into regional development.
Nor were there crises sufficient to stimulate a thorough-going agrarian reform.
Reforms have taken place, but their effect has been softened by modifications
and exceptions so as to make little overall difference to production. Most farmers
have also been kept at a poverty level so low as to give no space for training,
preparation of the younger generation, or improvement of skills in non-traditional
areas. Surplus population has migrated out to the towns, but at a modest pace
only sufficient to take away the surplus and still leave a high ratio of population
to farmed land.
The case may thus be made that either a negative crisis (famine or severe
shortages) or a positive one (surplus production for sale) would have promoted
change in the rural economy; but that in the event, production just increased in
line with the increase of population. Agriculture and the rural area for India did
not thus represent a major resource that could be used to finance development, as
happened in Argentina. Agriculture fed the country and little more. On the other
hand, India does not have the large open spaces that are so tempting for
investment in the South American countries, and so wasteful in most of the
regional development plans. Instead, the Indian regions are well populated and
represent potential markets. A spatially distributed development process would
be useful by bringing more of these regions into the national market, and making
