The Green Revolution is a concept and a period of agricultural transformation in India, primarily spanning the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. It was created to solve the critical problem of food scarcity and dependence on imports, which was exacerbated by severe droughts in 1964-65 and 1965-66. The movement was spearheaded in India by geneticist Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, with support from American agronomist Norman Borlaug, who is considered the Father of the Green Revolution globally.
The mechanism of the Green Revolution involved a package of practices centered on the introduction of High-Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds, particularly for wheat and rice, which were developed in places like Mexico and the Philippines. These dwarf, high-output varieties required a corresponding increase in inputs, including chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and assured irrigation facilities. The initial phase focused on states with better infrastructure, such as Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, which saw phenomenal increases in food grain production.
The Green Revolution is intrinsically connected to the government's policy of providing Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for crops, which incentivized farmers to adopt the new, capital-intensive technology. It also necessitated the development of rural infrastructure, including better credit facilities from cooperatives and commercial banks, and farm mechanization using tractors and harvesters. While the original Green Revolution made India self-sufficient in food grains, its legacy includes environmental concerns like groundwater depletion and soil toxicity from chemical overuse. This has led to the concept of a "Second Green Revolution" or Green Revolution 2.0, which aims to make agriculture more sustainable by focusing on scientific and organic farming methods to address these long-term challenges.