Green Revolution – It’s Over View in Punjab with Reference to Its Economy

Punjab from the beginning is and has been always considered as the agrarian state and also the state government and also with the help of the central government, has always tried to put in all the efforts in order to develop and grow the agro based industry in the state as this parameter accounts to about more than 60 percent of the living for the state and also has been found to contribute a lot to the central quota of the central government. For this in the early 1960 s, green revolution was introduced to the scene in India and the main focus after its introduction was the state of the Punjab taking major strides in increasing the productivity of the food grains, which mainly involved the increase in the production of the wheat and the rice. The term green revolution was at first used in the year of the 1908, by the former unites states agency for the use of the international development (USAID) director, William Guard, who was having a specific range of the characteristics like the spread of the new type of the technology in the field of the agriculture and also intending the production manifold. With the help of the green revolution, the state of the Punjab has been able to contribute a lot towards the central pool of the nation and as a result of this India has been able to become self sufficient and not at all depending on the other nations.

While studying to have an in depth knowledge of the green revolution, it is very important to know about the Dr Norman Barlaug, who is referred to as the father of the green revolution, he was an agronomist belonging to the united states and also who got the nobel prize in the year 1970 and has been made accountable for the saving of the over a billion people dying of the starvation, involved the development of the HYV of the cereal grains and also to the expansion of the irrigation infra structure, modernization of the management techniques and the distribution of the hybrid seeds and the synthetic fertilizers and also the pesticides to the farmers. Green revolution is the word that is brought in to the reference in order to explain the attempts made in order to bring a good and huge amount of the increase in the production of the crops and then ultimately the diversity of the crops. It all started as late as in the 20th century, when it was seen that the modern scientific research for the agriculture had led to the dramatic yield break through in all most all of the developed countries. After this the yield was further increased with the help of the modern plant breeding and also by the more developed practices of the agronomy and also with the help of the development of the in organic fertilisers. But such of the advances that were observed in the developed countries, were not the same in the case of the developing countries as the advance here in the developing countries was much slower as compared to the developed countries. One was this part and other was that the demand for more and more food was increasing at an alarming rate and this was mainly because of the reason of the increasing population that was observed that was growing at a very alarming and a fast rate, so all these factors made such an scenario that it had made very critical for government to introduce something that ease the scenario other wise the system would have collapsed.

In India, at that point of the time, mal nutrition and the hunger were wide spread and then the first step to fight against the hunger was made by the introduction of the high yield crop varieties of the wheat which was first brought in to the India in 1963 by the father of the green revolution from America, Dr Norman Barlaug, who is credited with the saving of the over a billion people from hunger, mainly with the help of the introduction of the high yielding varieties of the seeds and with the use of the high amount of the chemical fertilisers and this ultimately made India self sufficient in the sector of the food grains. Now the state of the Punjab was the first one to where the green revolution was first of all introduced in India as decided by the then government of the India and it was mainly due to the consistent and reliable supply of the water round the clock. In 1961, India was on the brink of the mass famine and at this time the green revolution was introduced in the state of the Punjab and ultimately in India by Dr Norman Barlaug as at that time Dr Norman Barlaug was invited to the India by the then adviser to the Indian minister of the agriculture C Subramanian. Now the requirement of the seeds was there and for getting them in India, a large no of the problems were being faced by the India but finally the government of the India was able to get the seeds from the International Maize and wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and this was this time that India started its experimentation work with the new types of the seeds leading to better breeding of the plants and development of the irrigation and also the financing of the agro chemicals. After this, came the turn of the Miracle Rice and this variety of the rice was called by this name for a reason and this reason was that this type of the rice was able to give at least ten times the yield of the traditional rice and this type of the variety of the rice was called as the IR 8 and this variety of the rice was developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and was called as the miracle rice. The green revolution was able to spread the technology to all parts of the country all most that was present at some places of the nation but due to various types of the reasons was not widely implemented.

The technologies involved in the process of the green revolution included the various types of the techniques that mainly include the modern projects of the irrigation with the major accessibility to the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers and the pesticides, leading ultimately to the development of the improved crop varieties which are referred to as the high yielding varieties (HYV). These type of the varieties have been found to be having a very high amount of the nitrogen content absorbing ability as compared to the other varieties that were present at that time in that particular type of the scenario. And in the later times, this ability was further improved with the help of the improvement of the genome with the help of the cross breeding technology. The first HYV of the rice IR 8 developed by the Indian rice research institute was made with the help of the cross between an Indonesian variety named PETA and also a Chinese variety DEE GEO WOO GEN. green revolution was also dependent on the double cropping system. This system refers to the practice that involves that instead of the one crop season per year, a system of the two crops per season was started which was further supported with the help of the large irrigation systems. Large dams were built and the main use of these structures was to arrest the large amount of the volumes of the natural monsoon water and with the support of the efficient irrigation technologies.

Now it is very important to have an in depth analysis of the things that were achieved with the help of the green revolution and what was lost by using this type of the method in the country. With the help of the green revolution, a grain out put of 131 million tons was achieved in the year 1978 – 1979 and these figures are it self a record in it self and this type of the yield was never achieved in India and even India was no where even closer to this at that time but with the help of the green revolution this milestone was achieved and India at that time it self became a ruling and living example for all most whole of the world and specially for the developing countries of the world who were also facing problems like India was facing like the increasing population but very less amount of the sources to feed all the individuals and hence as a result of this mal nutrition and hunger was prevailing and always pulling the country and its economy down in the growth as compared to the other countries of the world. With the help of the green revolution, the yield per unit of the form land was found to be improved to the level of the more than the 30 percent from the year of the independence of the 1947 to the year of the 1979. The area of the crop under the High yielding varieties was found to have grown to the level of the 22 percent from the negligible level of just the 7 percent of the total cultivated area during the ten years of the green revolution. More than the 70 percent of the wheat area, about 35 percent of the rice crop area and the 20n percent of the millet and the corn crop area was found to be using the high yielding varieties. The result of all these achievements was such that the India was then ultimately able to pay all its loans that it had taken at various times from the World Bank and also the increase in the irrigation ultimately create \the need for the new dams in order to avail the facility of the monsoon water as by this the water was stored and this water that was stored was used for creating the hydro electric power, which further was found to be boosting the industrial growth and then further the jobs were created and then further and at the end the quality of the life was improved of the people and specially of the people belonging to the rural areas, where this type of the improvement was very essential and needed urgently. As a result of all these factors and the achievements that were achieved, the gross domestic product of the country i.e. India increased and improved as the main reason that was noticed was that the with the help of the green revolution, the growth of the local manufacturing units took a great boost as the growth of the industries and coming up of the more and more of the industries, the creation of the large amount of the jobs was created and such jobs were not only for the agricultural workers but also for the industrial workers as there was the occurrence of the creation of the lateral facilities such as the factories and the hydro electric power stations as there was the record grain out put as the yield per the unit of the form land improved and also the area under the high yielding varieties grew at a large pace, leading to the birth of an era where India was seen as the self sufficient country in food grains where it was able on its own to support at least the people of its country and the hunger was a lot reduced factor to be gat worried of and the people were not dependent up on the funds and the grants received by India from the other countries and now India was self sufficient to support it self and its people, not looking towards the other countries to come and support our country, in which India was always seen as a losing party as India was achieving less and was losing more.

But as the other side of the coin, with the benefits come the limitations as well. The major affect of the green revolution is on the environment as the green revolution is having some of the very drastic affects on the environment, the local flora and the fauna. The fertility of the soil was reduced to a large extent as this was mainly because of the reason that the changes in the pattern of the use of the land were very quick and very drastic. The area under the wheat was almost doubled and in case of the rice, the area was almost increased by 5 times and as a result of this, there was seen a great slope in the cultivation of the leguminous crops. So as was the possibility, the fertility of the soil decreased by a huge amount and this decrease was also because of the reason that cultivation of the wheat and the rice was being done repeatedly and both of these the wheat and the rice use a large amount of the nutrients present in the soil and because of this, the nutrients present in the soil were drained up and hence the cultivation was at a large dependent on the use of the chemical fertilisers. This solved one purpose that if the nutrients are less the fertilisers can be used as the product for providing nutrients but by the use of the chemical fertilisers the original quality of the soil are lost and the toxicity of the soil increases as there are a large amount of the elements that are present in the very trace amounts in the soil as the requirement of such type of the elements is very less but by adding artificial chemical fertilisers, the required nutrients are obtained but along with these comes the elements in large amounts that are required in very trace amounts but there increased quantity increases the toxicity of the soil. These elements that increase the toxicity of the soil are generally lead, boron, fluorine etc. and these go along with the other nutrients in the crops during the absorption process and ultimately affect the health of the organisms. These have adverse affects like the nervous disorders, blood disorders, genetic changes, formation of the cancerous tissues in the body etc. in some of the cases it has also been found in the medical studies conducted that these trace elements also transfer in some cases from one generation to the other and hence as a result of this causes birth defects, several abnormalities, reproductive problems etc. and ultimately leading to the loss of the genetic diversity. This is mainly because of the mono culture that forms a very important and the critical part of the green revolution. The mono culture of the wheat and the rice, which replaced the crop rotation patterns, increased the production at a large but this was possible only in the case of the dwarf varieties of the wheat and the rice. The result of such a type of the cultivation is that the native rice and the native wheat is affected by this type of the cultivation supported by the mono culture and as a result of such type of the cultivation, the local flora is either lost or depleted. Another affect of the green revolution is the Stalinization and the desertification. Stalinization occurs mainly because of the reason of the water logging. Salts are brought down to the surface as a result of the Over irrigation and as a result of this salt residue is left at the end after the evaporation of the water and as a result of this the fertility of the soil is lost, which is refereed to as the desertification. As discussed above, one of the major things or the steps that were taken in the process of the green revolution is that the area under the cultivation of the wheat and the rice was increased by a huge amount and as result of this a large amount of the land that was covered by the grass was also made to convert to the land where agriculture was to be done. Hence as a result of this conversion or the transformation of the grass land to the agricultural land resulted in the creation of the ecological imbalance because the grass land is the habitat for the specific types of the flora and the fauna and this is not able to live in the agricultural land as the main natural habitat of all of tem is the natural grass land. So over all it can be said after carrying on with the in depth analysis of the green revolution, the green revolution has given a lot to India and nothing can be taken back from the appreciation but has provided with the mixed types of the results ranging from India to the various other developing countries where ever the green revolution has been brought in to the affect. It has been observed that on one land it represented the successful adaptation and the transfer of the scientific technology in the agriculture but along with this it has always accompanied the disastrous effects on the native flora and the fauna. Such negative environmental impacts are still to be adequately redressed as at this present time irrigation is being done with the help of the chemical fertilisers as a whole and at this moment only the positives are being taken away in to the lime light and the bad affects are not being even touched or talked about. But now the time has come to look in to all these issues and coming up with such a type of the techniques that are not only useful for the irrigation but leave minimal disastrous affects, so that we are not in such a scenario that we get one thing but on the other hand we also loose two things as this type of the scenario can not be digested for a long duration of the time.