The Green Revolution in India aimed to address food shortages through high-yielding crop varieties that required intensive chemical use. This transition from traditional to industrial agriculture had significant social, political, and environmental consequences. It increased tensions by prioritizing large farms, exacerbating inequalities. Over-application of chemicals degraded soils while dependence on external inputs rose. Ultimately, declining returns sparked unrest among small farmers and added to regional ethnic/religious conflicts, such as the crisis in Punjab between Sikh farmers and the central government.

1. The Green Revolution in India
Changing Agricultural Traditions
Laura Mulvey

2. What was the green revolution?
• A movement starting post
WWII to address food
shortages in developing
countries
• International relief
organizations invested in
research to breed more
productive rice and wheat
crops
• New agricultural
technologies were brought
to India- fertilizer,
agrochemicals, new types of
irrigation

3. Major issues
• Conflict between western and traditional
indigenous views
• Development
• Science
• Agriculture
• Environment
• An effort to break ecological limits that resulted
in new types of insecurity and vulnerability
• Political, cultural and economic issues inherent
in green revolution exacerbated political, ethnic
and religious tensions

4. Why was a revolution needed?
• Famine had ripped though
parts of India in the past,
and many economists and
agricultural scientists
predicted worse famine in
the future is a new plan was
not put in place
• Overpopulation was
stretching India’s food
resources
• Government inability to
ensure proper movement of
good to areas that were in
need

5. What were the political
consequences?
• Growing Fears in US
about spread of
communism
• Food insecurity
created political
insecurity which could
lead to communist
uprisings
• Part of the US strategy
to combat
communism was to
ensure food security in
President Truman visiting the International
developing countries
Rice Research Institute in the Philippines

6. Green revolution vs. traditional
agriculture
• Green revolution introduced High
Yielding Crop Varieties (HYCVs) to
India
• HYCVs required constant input of
agrochemicals (pesticides etc.)
and fertilizers
• New irrigation techniques were
implemented
• HYCV seeds and agrochemicals
needed to be obtained from
NGOs or from large distributors
• Created difficult environment for
small farmers
• Seed had traditionally been
harvested yearly from the field,
now farming required lots of
inputs

7. High yield crop varieties (HYCVs)
• International Rice Research
Institute, IRRI
• IR8 “miracle seed”
– Cooking quality issues
– Pest resistance issues
• With proper inputs
(fertilizer, chemicals) could
produce up to 5x more grain
per hectare
• Semi dwarf varieties developed Distribution plant for IR8 in Africa
– More plant mass found in
grain
– Resistant to high winds

8. Agrochemicals
•Fertilizers had not been used
on traditional crop varieties,
promoted vegetation growth
without increasing yield
•Pesticide use necessary,
many HYCV had poor pest
resistance
• Issues from improper use of agrochemicals
• Farmers wee not always taught proper application techniques
• Toxic issues from pesticides
• Over fertilization
• Most fertilizers imported from US
• Created large market for fertilizer manufacturing
• Many war time explosive manufacturing plants converted to fertilizer
manufacturing

10. How did India benefit?
• Increased Crop Yield seen in
majority of HYCV areas
• Large expansion of HYCV use
continued well though the
80’s
• Farms with proper use of
agrochemicals/fertilizers saw
dramatic increase
• Benefit not seen as much in
small farms
• Eventually in most areas crop
yield plateaued and
subsequently fell

11. What were the ecological
consequences?
• Problems with soil fertility
• Micronutrient issues
• Increased dependence of
external applications of fertilizer
• Water quality issues
• Ecological degradation caused
returns to decrease at the years
went on
• Loss of diversity
Activist poster from the 1980s
• Improper application of calling for an end to pesticide
pesticides caused poisoning use

12. What were the social and political
consequences
• Changed the nature of agriculture,
from internal to external inputs
(buying seed, fertilizer etc)
• The commercialization of relationships
and subsequent cultural erosion
• The rapid increase in grain in the first
several years drove down the price of
food, harder for small farmers to make
a profit
• It increased competition for smaller
resources, rural inequality

13. What were the social and political
consequences
• Seed and chemical distribution was controlled by
the Indian government, the top-down approach
created tensions in the state
• Decreasing return on investments caused many
farmers to blame government
• Increased ethnic and religious tensions
• Feelings of resentment among farmers
• Farm riots

14. Crisis in Punjab
• Punjab region once known as
India's “bread basket”
• Inhabited by Sikh minority
• Tensions between state and
central Indian government
over control of agricultural
economics
• Increased ethnic/religious
tensions
• Call for formation of
independent Sikh state

15. Crisis in Punjab
Cultural issues:
-commercialization
Nature of green
Economic &
of relationships
revolution:
Political tensions:
-cultural erosion
-conflict over
- sharing of power
-homogenized
resources
between state and
ethnic identities
-class conflict central government
-pauperization -top down
regulations
-declines of
profitability - Feelings of
weakness from local
Crisis in
-environmental
and state
degridation Punjab
government
-violence
-resentment

16. How does this relate to environmental
history?
• Changed how farmers
interacted with the
environment
– Movement to high tech
centralized agriculture
– Commercialization of
major grain seed
• Illustrates relationships
between environmental
degradation and
political/social issues