Time for another Green Revolution

As India seeks to ignite the next agrarian revolution, it must try and absorb some of the lessons of the Green Revolution. Currently, agricultural productivity and growth vary from State to State, resulting in regional disparities. Through targeted policymaking, investment in rural infrastructure and research, and ongoing support to farmers, we can level out these inequities and ensure that we get it right.

The Green Revolution of the 1960s had a phenomenal impact on food production in India. It resulted in a record grain output of 131 mt in 1978-79 and catapulted our country into the league of the world’s leading grain producers. Similar agricultural techniques implemented globally showed us a way out of food crises in countries across the world.

For example, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines developed new high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice that significantly boosted output and alleviated crop shortages in certain parts of the world.

However, the effects of the Green Revolution in India have plateaued since then. Though India is now self-sufficient in many aspects of food production, it still relies on imports for crops such as pulses and oilseeds, where production has not kept pace with demand from a burgeoning population.

The agriculture sector currently lags growth in other fields and the income gap between farmers and non-farmers is widening. Hence, the need of the hour is to infuse fresh energy to drive the next phase of growth in agriculture .

Though the Green Revolution was a game changer, investment in key areas including machinery and irrigation systems to support the cultivation of high yielding crop varieties was not adequate. As a result, the effects of the revolution were not uniform, resulting in imbalanced growth in many regions.

The second agricultural revolution that we now have to ignite should build on the good work initiated by the first one while filling some of its gaps. The goal is not just to make India self-sufficient in food production but to enable surplus production that will allow it to become an exporter of food.

According to the agriculture ministry, India achieved an agricultural growth rate of 3.64 per cent against a target of 4 per cent growth over the 11th Plan period. The increase in total planted area under major crops (foodgrains, oilseeds, cotton, and sugarcane) by around 9 per cent since 2000-01 to 170 million hectares in 2011-12 reflects increased irrigation availability leading to increased cropping intensity.

Another fact that would support India’s case to be a major force in world trade is that according to the US department of agriculture, India has emerged as a major agricultural exporter, with exports climbing from just over $5 billion in 2003 to a record of more than $39 billion in 2013.

Ashok Gulati, renowned agricultural economist and chair professor, agriculture, at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations has also called for revolutionary methods to dramatically boost food supply for the nation's 1.2 billion people.

According to the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, drylands produce half the country’s cereals, 77 per cent of its oilseeds and 85 per cent of its pulses. Implementation of new and efficient irrigation methods, better watershed management and maintenance of vegetation cover in catchment areas, are all important steps in the quest to match water availability to crop needs, and thus the development of crop varieties tolerant to water stress (abiotic stress) is required to optimise water utilisation.

Good infrastructure is an extremely important factor for agricultural development, as it directly impacts the degree to which farmers can access institutional finance and markets, as well as their ability to boost yield. Agricultural infrastructure has the potential to transform the current landscape of subsistence farming into one defined by modern, commercial farming.

Public investment in infrastructure such as irrigation, power, roads, food storage, watersheds, dams and agricultural research, including agri-biotechnology, will signal a commitment from the Government to transform the face of Indian agriculture and empower our farmers to compete globally. The role of agriculture in improving rural lives and securing India’s food needs should not be underestimated.

Clearly, a priority for the Government should be to refocus policymaking energy on this sector — in terms of providing support and infrastructure. A recent Crisil report predicts that slowdown in other sectors may lead more people to reconsider agriculture as a primary source of income.

The Government seems to have understood the priorities for the agriculture sector, especially its call for optimum use of water through ‘per drop, more crop’ and need for related research technology to the sector by taking research initiatives from ‘lab to land’ to increase farm productivity.

Also, the Government’s Digital India campaign is another encouraging step to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. eKranti, which is one of the pillars of the campaign that also focuses on technology for farmers with real-time price information, online ordering of inputs, and payment with mobile banking, will enable farmers to take informed decisions.

Biotech food crops are also critical for enabling the success of this next revolution. Although sometimes misrepresented, these crops have been proven to significantly improve yield through high levels of disease and pest resistance, improved weed management, abiotic stress tolerance and nutrient-use efficient crops.

It’s important to note that according to the 2013 report of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, a record 18 million farmers grew biotech crops worldwide and the biotech crops hectares increased more than 100-fold from 1.7 million hectares in 1996, to over 175 million hectares in 2013.

Some 7.3 million Indian farmers cultivated a record 11 million hectares of Bt cotton with an adoption rate of 95 per cent. If all the other necessary inputs and infrastructure are in place, biotech crops can be vital to the kind of sectorial transformation that we have to achieve for meeting our food needs.

The writer is the managing director of Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Ltd (Mahyco)

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