The Green Revolution is erroneous?

The Green Revolution has changed life in Indian villages, but the main beneficiaries were the landlords. Daily labourers remain poor and marginalised.

The limits of using ever more fertiliser and pesticides are becoming apparent. Many farmers are confused because extension services want them to reconsider practices they were told to abandon not that long ago.

A member of the Santal tribe, an Adivasi community, assesses things from the village perspective.

Since independence from the British in 1947, agriculture has always been the major feature in economic policy making in India.

The Green Revolution that set in the mid-sixties has dramatically raised productivity. It was based on mechanisation, irrigation, improved seed, fertilisers and related matters. India’s harvests of rice, wheat and potatoes have risen spectacularly.

In West Bengal, rice yields have increased dramatically thanks to the Green Revolution and a land reform.

The latter was called Operation Barga and implemented by the Left Front state government. Basically, Operation Barga was about registering sharecroppers, strengthening their legal position vis-a-vis the landowners and entitling them to a fair share of the harvests.

The state government’s agriculture department supports the farmers through various extension programmes, informing farmers about new scientific trends. Moreover, it recommends specific kinds of hybrid seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. On top of all this, a Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme has been introduced that has been  designed to give farmers better access to financial services.

Some of the most important changes observed are:

n Hundreds of traditional seed varieties were replaced with a few high-yielding varieties.
n Home-made bio-compost or cowdung manure has been replaced by chemical fertilisers.

n To some extent, manual systems of irrigation have been replaced by fuel or electricity-powered equipment. Similarly, thrashing machines and tractors have become common.

n The farmers no longer work in a basically self-sufficient manner. They used to depend on the landlords, now they depend on the government and various private-sector companies as well.

There is a downside to the Green Revolution: In our village, the yields on many plots have dropped by half. Adding more fertiliser no longer results in better harvests. Groundwater resources are being depleted. Biological diversity has suffered tremendously, and there are hardly any forests left in our region.

Climate change compounds these worries. The weather has been becoming increasingly erratic in recent years, and the  rains seem less predictable than they used to be.

At the same time, class divisions between landlords and landless villagers have resurfaced. The farmers who have more land became front runners in taking agricultural loans and subsidies from the government, banks and companies. But the tribal and marginalised people, who account for at least five percent of West Bengal’s population, are landless.

Young village people who get an education do not consider farming an attractive livelihood. They are interested in salaried jobs in towns. Farming, in their eyes, is slow and time-consuming, and it requires hard physical work. The irony of Indian agriculture is that the educated people who understand the science of farming do not work in the fields, so they do not disseminate their knowledge to villagers.

Many old-style farmers hardly know what kind or how much fertiliser and pesticide is needed for a certain area of land. They often rely on the information provided by shopkeepers, who lack expertise themselves.

The greatest worry, however, is the harmful effect caused to agriculture and the environment in general by the depletion of underground water resources and the uncontrolled use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

Damage control

Realising the problems, the state government is now trying to motivate farmers to cultivate crops that need less water. Moreover, extension officers promote rainwater harvesting and the use of vermin and bio compost.

They also advise farmers to gear their production to market demand, emphasising high-value goods such as vegetables and fruits. The basic idea is to use natural and human resources more economically.

However, many farmers are not convinced. They feel confused: “We did what the government officials told us,” says one Santal farmer. “We experimented with new seed, fertilisers, pesticides, and we sold off our oxen and now use the tractor. But after seeing these side effects they tell us to return to the former methods.”

Besides government initiatives, various non-governmental organisations are involved in agricultural development in our area.

Manab Jamin, for example, promotes organic farming and trains farmers in practices like crop rotation and mixed cropping.

There are limits to what we can achieve however. Most of the land we cultivate does not belong to our families, but to non-resident landlords.

We would like educated youngsters to become drivers of rural change, but so far, the political economy of West Bengal’s agriculture does not give us much scope.