The Green Revolution in India: A Case Study of Technological Change

Abstract

The term is generally taken to mean the increase in cereal productivity experienced in some Third World countries as a result of the change in agricultural technology during the 1960s and 1970s.' In this article, my objective is to reconstruct the history of the Green Revolution in India, highlighting the processes of technology transfer and diffusion of knowledge and the institutionalization of a successful agricultural research system. It is an instance of a relatively successful technology transfer, notwithstanding some latent problems associated with it. Generally, the Green Revolution involved the use of seeds of high-yielding varieties (HYVs), primarily of wheat and rice, and the adoption of a package of improved agricultural practices involving fertilizers, pesticides, controlled water, credits, mechanical threshers, pumps, and so forth. These changes were instituted in place of the agricultural practice involving the use of seeds whose genetic makeup goes back thousands of years. Traditional technologies also include wooden plows, waterwheels, and bullock carts, with the energy required for all agricultural activities provided by animals and humans. Finally, traditional agriculture is largely dependent on the vagaries of monsoon rains. Subsistence farming is often characterized by an exclusion effect, which is a tendency on the part of peasant farmers to resist change. This tendency to maintain status quo prompted the government to