Green Revolution—South Asia | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

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Green Revolution Summary

Green Revolution—South Asia

The Green Revolution, a transformation in the organization of South Asian agriculture that took place mainly between 1964 and 1978, was attendant upon the adoption of high-yielding varieties (HYV) of major crops, including rice, wheat, maize, and some millets. While farmers traditionally planted seeds selected each year from their own crops, seeds for the high-yielding varieties were created in central facilities by systematic selection, hybridization, and genetic transfer. These HYV cultigens do not breed true to type, and pests and diseases constantly evolve adaptations to the new varieties. Consequently, once farmers adopted them, they became dependent on this large and advanced technological infrastructure. The result is a system of peasant agriculture that combines traditional farm management with some of the world's most advanced agricultural science.

Although the new cultigens are often described as "miracle" varieties, they do not produce increased yields under all conditions. They give increased yields primarily in response to heavier and more regular water, fertilizer, and pest control. Without such inputs, the yields of the new varieties are not consistently better than the yields of the traditional varieties, and they may be worse. Accordingly, even though adoption of the HYV crops has been widespread in South Asia, the benefits have depended largely on the quality of the agricultural-support structure in the several countries. Where yields of HYV cultigens have increased, as a rule the yields of many traditional varieties have increased also (Leaf 1998: 109–112). The transformation has been most widespread and most successful in India, followed by Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The effect has been marginal in Bangladesh and Nepal.

Technology

The core methods for transferring desired characteristics from one species to another were initially developed in two major international laboratories. Beginning in 1942, wheat and maize were developed at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico under the combined sponsorship of the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation, headed by Norman Borlaug (b. 1914). Beginning in 1960, rice varieties were developed at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRA) in the Philippines, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Philippine government and based on the Mexican model. Later, millets were developed in India by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), again in collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation, with a view toward replicating what had been done to improve the yields of commercial millets in the United States.

Infrastructure

Since the resources on farms are limited in South Asia, much of the infrastructure necessary to provide the required input to HYV plants and to take the resulting crops to market must be created by organizations at or above the village level. The organizations specifically involved with the Green Revolution were primarily government package programs, agricultural universities and research centers, and cooperatives.

Before independence, agricultural research took place in state agriculture departments and a few central institutes, while agricultural colleges aimed almost exclusively at providing departmental staff. These institutions did little to change the historic pattern of a large but poor agricultural population producing only slightly more than it consumed. After independence, the governments of India and Pakistan recognized the contrast between their inherited institutions and the dynamic, productive system of agricultural research and education in the United States. On the basis of agreements between the government of India, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and a consortium of five U.S. land-grant universities, signed in 1954 and 1955, India in 1960 began to develop a series of agricultural universities modeled on the American land-grant colleges (Naik and Sankaram 1972: 83, 99).

Concurrently, in 1959, a team from the government of India and the Ford Foundation conducted a study of constraints on agricultural productivity. The result was the formation of the Integrated Agricultural Development Programme, begun in 1961–1962 with support from the Ford Foundation. The main idea was to concentrate development inputs in a few especially promising districts selected from around the country. The newly formed agricultural universities would recommend a package of crops for these districts, based on the best available science, and prescribe the services needed to produce them. The state governments would provide the services (Gill 1983: 205). The plan was successful and was quickly expanded to one district in every state under the new designation of the Intensive Agricultural Areas Programme and to still other districts starting in 1964–1965. Parallel efforts were urged in Pakistan but with little success, largely because Pakistan's rural economy is dominated by a small class of wealthy absentee landholders whose main historical interest has been in maintaining their

**TABLE 1Wheat production for 1965, 1975, 1980, 1995**(in percentages)
	1965	1975	1980	1995
SOURCE: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
South Asia	100	189	189	258
Bangladesh	100	338	2,382	3,604
India	100	197	197	260
Nepal	100	263	263	349
Pakistan	100	167	167	237

own power (Sims, 1988: 161–162, 189). A strong district administration responsive to the actual farmers would not serve this end.

The package programs demonstrated that the response of traditional crop varieties to increased inputs with increased yields was limited, and this set the stage for the adoption of the high-yielding varieties. In 1962, M. S. Swaminathan (b. 1925), "father" of the Green Revolution in India, urged the Indian Agricultural Research Institute to bring Borlaug to India to arrange a large-scale collaboration, arguing that otherwise it would be impossible to realize the full benefits of the package program (Randhawa 1980–1986: 4:367). The institute agreed, and in 1964 the cooperative effort established new centers that, along with several of the new universities, conducted adaptive research and began testing and multiplying seeds of the most promising varieties.

Results

Results varied according to the crop. Wheat yields in India increased from 9,132 kilograms per hectare in 1965 to 12,384 kilograms per hectare in 1975 and to 14,356 kilograms per hectare in 1980. By 1995, the yield in India was 25,590 kilograms per hectare. The yields in Pakistan were 8,631 kilograms per hectare in 1965, 11,375 kilograms per hectare in 1975, 15,680 kilograms per hectare in 1980, and 20,811 kilograms per hectare in 1995. That is, between 1965 and 1995, wheat yields in India increased about 280 percent, and those in Pakistan increased about 240 percent. Increases in total yields for the four producing countries in South Asia are given in Table 1. All production figures are from the agricultural database of the statistical service of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The FAO in turn receives data from the statistical services of the respective countries; therefore data quality varies widely.

**TABLE 2Paddy production in 1965, 1970, 1980, 1985**(in percentages)
	1965	1970	1980	1985
SOURCE: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
South Asia	100	131	166	193
Bangladesh	100	106	132	143
India	100	138	175	209
Nepal	100	104	112	127
Pakistan	100	167	237	222
Sri Lanka	100	211	279	348

The impressive proportional gains for Nepal and Bangladesh largely reflect the fact that their calculations start from a particularly small base.

South Asia produces about twice as much rice as wheat. Improvements in rice production have lagged behind those in wheat production but have been sufficient to eliminate substantially the threat of famine. In India, an initiative by ICAR, IRRI, and USAID in 1967 introduced the new varieties through the Central Rice Research Institute in Cuttack, Orissa, and the new All-India Coordinated Rice Improvement Project at Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Several states were involved in the project. In 1965–1966, the entire Indian production of rice was 30.6 million metric tons. By 1976–1977, it was 52.7 million metric tons. The percentage increases in paddy production from 1965 to 1995 for South Asia as a whole and for each major producing country are given in Table 2.

Assessment

In the early 1960s, South Asia faced the threat of severe food shortfalls. The Green Revolution averted that threat. Although hunger still exists in the region, it is the consequence of inequities in distribution rather than insufficient production. The Green Revolution accomplished what its authors promised, and its potential is far from exhausted.