At independence, about 75 per cent of the
country’s population was dependent on agriculture. Productivity in the
agricultural sector was very low because of the use of old technology and the
absence of required infrastructure for the vast majority of farmers. India’s
agriculture vitally depends on the monsoon and if the monsoon fell short the
farmers were in trouble unless they had access to irrigation facilities which
very few had. The stagnation in agriculture during the colonial rule was
permanently broken by the green revolution. This refers to the large increase
in production of food grains resulting from the use of high yielding variety
(HYV) seeds especially for wheat and rice. The use of these seeds required the
use of fertiliser and pesticide in the correct quantities as well as regular
supply of water; the application of these inputs in correct proportions is
vital. The farmers who could benefit from HYV seeds required reliable
irrigation facilities as well as the financial resources to purchase fertiliser
and pesticide. As a result, in the first phase of the green revolution
(approximately mid 1960s upto mid 1970s), the use of HYV seeds was restricted
to the more affluent states such as Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Further, the use of HYV seeds primarily benefited the wheatgrowing regions
only. In the second phase of the green revolution (mid-1970s to mid-1980s), the
HYV technology spread to a larger number of states and benefited more variety
of crops. The spread of green revolution technology enabled India to achieve
self-sufficiency in food grains
