Green Revolution and Farmers protest against government

Introduction

Also called the third agricultural revolution, is an era which started from 1950 to the late 1960s in the whole world. It was started in India in 1961. When India faced major famine then erstwhile Minister of agriculture MS Swaminath started green revolution in India. Indian farmers (72% population) faced sudden and massive fertility in the crops which in turn led to their benefit. It was started in the state of Punjab first given the history of water supply and the fertile land. Farmers protest against government, read full review.

There have been 5 reasons for the revolution- 

1. High yielding seeds- These seeds are made by the scientists which increase the fertility of crops, in a field where a farmer could grow only one crop now they can harvest 10 crops throughout the year. The main purpose to create these seeds was to remove famine and scarcity of food in developing nations so it increases the fertility in the soil.
2. Pesticides- Pesticides are used to kill the organism that eats the crops and make it difficult for the farmers to grow the crops. It kills them and it includes herbicides, insecticides, rodenticide and fungicide. There are more pesticides as well, you can find it easily in the local markets.
3. Fertilizers- These are the seeds that are spread in the field to increase productivity. Fertilizers provide some essential nutrients which are required by the crops in the growing season which include nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus.
4. Crop rotation-  Crop gives nutrients to the soil and some of the crops takes many nutrients so as per the nutrients required by the crop farmers grow one soil at a time, say crop A takes more nutrients so the farmer will grow that crop first and say crop B gives ay nutrients to the soil so the farmer will grow that later.  It means that now farmers can grow crops throughout the year on the same field and not just for 4 months.
5. Modern farming ways- The modern technologies included intensive tillage, monoculture, irrigation, chemical pest control, and genetic manipulation of the crop plants. With new irrigation technologies, tractors, etc coming up as new modern farming ways the graph of the farm produce has to go up.
6. Farmers protest against government and more info, read more.

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The great success

1. Surplus in farm produce- After all these new technologies coming up the production of the farming has to increase, now the farmers would not only do subsistence farming but also commercial farming.
2. Increase in production- Here is data to show how much the production was increased. From 1960-61 the production was only about 82 million tons which suddenly increased to 176 million tons in the year 1990-91.
3. National income- it increased to a great extent as the green revolution led to the opening of many industries and surplus production would make India trading partner with many other nations.
4. Benefit to labour class- Initially when grains and other essential food were less it was ultimately very costly and the labor class could not afford it therefore after the green revolution food was cheap and easily accessible which made it possible for the labor class to afford and not sleep empty stomach.
5. Excessive food grains- The food grain and other crops started to be produced more and more hence the government had to create warehouses to store them so that it could be used at any time when calamity would hit. This way surplus would never go wasted.

Why the Failure then

1. Limited crops- The new system could only apply to a few crops only like the main ones which are rice, wheat etc.  And India being an agro based nation could not afford to only grow these few crops the whole year, and the recent farmers protestagainst government shows how aware the Indian farmers are.
2. Uneven distribution- The benefit was only available to the big farmers who were rich enough to afford these machines and irrigation methods. The small farmers still struggled to grow few crops that too only for 4 or 5 months when monsoon would occur.
3. Soil degradation- It means when the crops start to lose fertility then the capacity of the soil to hold water and the quality of the soil degrades. Due to the shortage of fertile crops it would directly hit the production and the economy of India who exports surplus to other nations.Soil erosion is a gradual process of movement and transport of the upper layer of soil (topsoil) by different agents – particularly water, wind, and mass movement – causing its deterioration in the long term.

Conclusion | Farmers protest against government

Every revolution or a change takes time to be adapted but this green revolution has been the best so far and the changes have been adopted at a fast pace. But as every other change it had its own pros and cons.