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Importance of Green Revolution in India Economic Development

The Green Revolution in India in the 1960s and 1980s led to a significant increase in agricultural production through the use of high-yielding seed varieties, irrigation, and fertilizers. This boosted the agricultural sector and overall economy. Cereal production grew exponentially while the population grew linearly, improving food security. Increased agricultural exports and related industries further accelerated economic growth. By the 1980s, the Green Revolution had transformed India from a poor economy to one with improved living standards and food security for its population.

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96 views

Importance of Green Revolution in India Economic Development

The Green Revolution in India in the 1960s and 1980s led to a significant increase in agricultural production through the use of high-yielding seed varieties, irrigation, and fertilizers. This boosted the agricultural sector and overall economy. Cereal production grew exponentially while the population grew linearly, improving food security. Increased agricultural exports and related industries further accelerated economic growth. By the 1980s, the Green Revolution had transformed India from a poor economy to one with improved living standards and food security for its population.

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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Importance of Green Revolution in India’s Economic

Development
Shivansh Jaiswal — Class 10
Word Count: 742

1 Introduction
The Green Revolution, closely related with the agricultural sector of India, is infact a really
meaningful contributor to the efficiency of the Indian Economy. It goes back to 1980s when
the output from the agricultural sector started to register high growth rates, which was a
result of a set of events chronologically affecting different aspects of agricultural industry,
which started during the 1960s, when it just affected some crops in states like Punjab, to
1980s, when almost all crops could now be produced more efficiently. This logarithmic
booming is severely linked to the technological, and scientific advantages that the world
and India had experienced at the time of the context, and more awareness among the farm-
ers, striving for more produce. This growth seemingly was a prerequisite for the economic
growth that India has experienced since then.

2 Agricultural Growth
A basic introduction to the techniques discussed and promoted in the severely out looked,
Green Revolution can be summarized as ”A combination of using High Yielding Vari-
ety of Seeds, while providing substantial nourishment, by more sophisticated methods
of irrigation and usage of fertilizers”. By Looking at the production charts for the
various crops, we can depict the nature of growth very clearly.

We can therefore depict from the given graphs that the growth in the staple crops was

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linear since the 1960s, which was when the first part of the revolution started, and remains
apparently constant to this date. But talking of the non-staple crops, we see a pattern,
which emerges due to the first revolution focusing on the staple crops, and thus we see a
growth only after the second part started, or have had no significant jumps in its produc-
tion, for example, Cotton, Potato and Soy-bean.

A quick reference to the net growth of the Indian Agricultural Sector, along with some
other essential data, to suggest that the growth of the cereal production rate is exponen-
tial, while the population of India is growing linearly.

Figure 5: Population and Cereal Production and Trade in India

Another thing to note is that the growth has sprung up only on the 2 waves, or parts of the
Green Revolution, first is because the staple crops sprung up in production, the averages
were still low because of the other crops lacking behind. We know that the second sector
promoted growth of all the crops, and hence the averages sprung up once again.

2
3 Economic Growth
The economy of India has been closely linked to the growth of the agricultural sector. The
data we have suggests that it was only after the Green Revolution that the economy has
thrived. Before the era of Independence, the Indian Economy was suffering. Even after
independence the Green Revolution, for a substantial amount of time, the economy was
still hanging at relatively low point. Some reasons for this are: Not enough assets for export
import, which was necessary for the advantages the HYV seeds provided; Low quality of
land after exploitation by the British; The HYV seeds were confined to Haryana, Punjab
Uttar Pradesh, so rural India still didn’t have any growth. In the span of 10 years, 1960 to
1970, the economy sprung quite up.

Figure 6: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Growth of India 1919-2018

The growth rate of Agricultural Sector was at its peak in the 1980s, when, thanks to tech-
nological advantage, and availability of electricity in most remote parts of India, irrigation
could be better, and HYV seeds could work nicely. A pattern of rice-wheat crop was estab-
lished after the tube-well innovation, which further improved the efficiency of production.
Now, farming could be done in most remote parts of the country.

Trade of the agricultural goods, that is, export of crops such as cotton, rice, tea con-
tributed significantly to the economy. With an increase in the demand for the tube-wells,
and agricultural technologies, there was a increase in the production and import of such
goods. Other industrial growth such as building up of dams, to create hydro power and
more production of in-house fertilisers are all significant contributors to the economic golden

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age of India. The following table gives us a brief summary of the trends.

Figure 7: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Growth Trends 1919-2018

4 Conclusion
The Green Revolution provided the population with a unprecedented level of food security,
and helped pull a large number of people out of poverty, after suffering from the brutal
British Raj. The Revolution indeed has played a major role in not only improving the
economy of India, by significantly contributing to the factors affecting the GDP, but also
help other nations, by improving their food security, and saved millions if not billions from
possible famines. India was transformed from a ”Third World Country” to a country people
now admire.

References
[1] Our World in Data GDP
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-world-regions-stacked-area

[2] Our World in Data Crop Yields


https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields

[3] Koichi Fujita Green Revolution in India and Its Significance in Economic Development:
Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa
http://www.policydialogue.org/files/events/Fujita_green_rev_in_india.pdf

[4] Project Guru Overview of the agriculture sector in India since independence
https://www.projectguru.in/agriculture-sector-india/

[5] Statistical Year Book India Chapter 8 Agriculture


http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/Statistical_year_book_india_chapters/
Agriculture writeup_0.pdf

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