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Recently, India celebrated the 100th birth anniversary of Verghese Kurien, the leader of India’s ‘white revolution’.

Concerns associated with Green Revolution

• Green Revolution is primarily focused on food grains including wheat, rice, jowar, bajra and maize, etc. However, it is wheat and rice which has benefited the most.
• This has resulted in excess production of wheat and rice and shortages in most others today prevail side by side.
• Further, major commercial crops like cotton, jute, tea and sugarcane are also almost untouched by the Green Revolution.
• It has hardly touched the Eastern region and arid and semi-arid areas of Western and Southern India. Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh in the north and Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the south.
• Green Revolution has benefited the big farmers as they have the financial resources to purchase farm implements, better seeds, fertilizers and can arrange for regular supply of irrigation water to the crops.

Way Forward

• Rather than ‘global (or national) scale’ solutions, the ‘local systems’ solutions as practised in the white revolution can be practised.
• The principles of cooperative management in “natural farming” will result in better economic policies and better management methods to increase inclusion and improve environmental sustainability.
• The government needs to promote the food processing units in agriculture.