AGRICULTURE
& ALLIED SECTORS :
QUANTUM JUMP
THROUGH NEW INITIATIVES
The
first phase
of transformation of Indian agriculture (1950 – 70) was mainly driven by the
need to achieve self-sufficiency in food grains as India was importing a large
quantity of cereals, for meeting domestic shortages in 1950s and 1960s. The
growth in foodgrain production during the first two decades, following the
country’s independence, was small. The grain output could touch close to 100million
tone only in 1974 – 75 from around 50 million tone reported during 1950 – 51.
Post
independence era, the area under irrigation was low and there were frequent
droughts and the prime objective at that time was to make adequate food
supplies available to the increasing population and ensuring provision of raw
materials for the expansion of industrial sector. This was to be achieved by
way of - imports, reorganisation of the agricultural sector and a series of
development measures encompassing expansion of irrigation and, extensive as
well as intensive farming. These initiatives were given further boost by
strengthening agricultural administration and kicking off special area
programmes.
The
advent of new high yielding varieties brought Green Revolution in late 1960s,
which in combination with expansion in area under cultivation and usage of
chemical fertilisers increased the output of cereals, mainly – wheat and rice,
followed by other coarse cereals such as maize to a certain extent chiefly in
Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. The Green Revolution efforts were
led by renowned agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan and team of scientists
from Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR). Thus a combination of
technological development, significant investments as well as support by the
government led to a significant increase in production of cereals
The early phase
of green revolution was largely associated with the spread of new technology to
better endowed and irrigated regions of northern India, therefore, special
efforts were then made to spread new technology into those regions, which had
remained outside the fold of technological revolution. Consequently, special
programmes were launched during late 1970s and mid-1980s.
WHITE REVOLUTION FOLLOWS GREEN REVOLUTION
The
second phase
of transformation (1970– 1990) witnessed a play of a combination of expansion
of the Green Revolution into new crops and areas and introduction of the ‘White
Revolution’ or also known as Operation Flood, which laid the foundations for
consolidation of gains made in first phase and led to enormous growth of milk
production in the country during 1980 and 1990s. Led by Verghese Kurien, also
known as ‘Milk Man of India’, the country’s milk output saw a huge increase
through setting up cooperatives in various states. Since then the milk output
has risen to 146.31 million tone in 2014 – 15 and India continues to top the
list of major milk-producing countries in the world followed by the USA, China,
Pakistan and Brazil.
The
‘Operation Flood’ programme used a combination of food-aid in the form of milk
powder and butter oil from the European Economic Community to stabilise
domestic prices of dairy products and develop dairy cooperatives by creating
physical and institutional infrastructure for procurement, processing and
marketing of milk and building linkages with the main cities of the country.
This was followed up by financial aid from the World Bank during the second
phase of Operation Flood in the 1980s to integrate efforts made by state
governments into a national level programme. Besides during the 1980s an
attempt was also made to increase supplies of oilseeds and reduce imports of
edible oils through a Technology Mission on Oilseeds. The approach was very
much on the lines of dairy development model and the effort was to develop
location-specific technologies to boost supplies, create marketing facilities,
and modernize edible oil processing technology. The mission was successful in
boosting supplies of oilseeds initially.
Besides, in
the second phase of transformation of Indian agriculture, while the gross
cropped areaexpanded by just about 12% from 164 million hectares to 185 million
hectares, but gross irrigatedarea during this period continued the growth
momentum. More than 27 million hectares were added to the existing 39 million
hectares of irrigation capacity that existed in the early 1950s. The
otherfactors such as use of fertilizers, road network and electricity
generation also expanded significantly
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