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

Abstract

The Green Revolution in India: A Case Study of Technological Change GOVINDAN PARAYIL The term “Green Revolution” is generally taken to mean the in­ crease in cereal productivity experienced in some Third World coun­ tries as a result of the change in agricultural technology during the 1960s and 1970s.1 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 institution­ alization 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 agri­ cultural practices involving fertilizers, pesticides, controlled water, credits, mechanical threshers, pumps, and so forth. These changes were instituted in place of the “traditional” agricultural practice in­ volving the use of seeds whose genetic makeup goes back thousands of years. “Traditional” technologies also include wooden plows, wa­ terwheels, and bullock carts, with the energy required for all agricul­ tural 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 Dr. Parayil teaches history of technology and science, technology, and society courses at Illinois Institute of Technology. He received his doctorate in science and technology studies from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He thanksJoseph Pitt, Dana Dalrymple, and Henry Bauer for helpful comments and criticisms of earlier drafts of the article. 'The term was first suggested by William Gaud in a speech entitled “The Green Revolution: Accomplishments and Apprehensions,” given at a meeting of the Society for International Development in 1968. See D. G. Dalrymple, “The Adoption of High-yielding Varieties in Developing Countries,” Agricultural History 53 (1979): 70426 . Also see V. W. Ruttan and H. P. Binswanger, “Induced Innovation and the Green Revolution,” in Induced Innovation: Technology, Institutions and Development, ed. V. W. Ruttan and H. P. Binswanger (Baltimore, 1978), p. 359.© 1992 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040- 165X/92/3304-0003$01.00 737 738 Govindan Parayil formulate and implement a new agricultural policy to break out ofthe stasis in agricultural productivity that culminated in a near-famine situation in the 1960s. As there was no more land to be brought under the plow, increasing the productivity of the land using modern tech­ nology became the most viable means of providing food for the near one-fourth ofthe world’s population dependent on only one-sixteenth of its land area. The Green Revolution, which has made India selfsufficient in food grains even though it has spread only to a quarter of its arable land, may be characterized as the new technological par­ adigm that replaced the old one characterized by subsistence farming. In areas where the Green Revolution was successful (such as in Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, and parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala), the increased productivity of the land came with lasting and irreversible changes. Before the Green Revolution, almost all cultivators were peasants who mainly produced for subsistence. Markets were rudimentary or nonexistent. Peasants obtained what they could not produce but needed for subsistence from other peasants by exchanging grains and whatever other commodities they produced. Agricultural laborers and other rural skilled laborers like carpenters and blacksmiths were mostly paid in grain or other agricultural produce. Their technology was preindustrial, with en­ ergy supplied mainly by humans and animals. In areas where it took root, the Green Revolution replaced one way of life with another within a short span of two decades. The peasant cultivators became farmers for whom agriculture was a calling beyond subsistence. They sold most of their produce in the markets. Agricul­ tural laborers and other skilled workers whose help was needed in maintaining agricultural machinery were paid in cash. Along with an increase in agricultural productivity came a higher demand for farm labor, and...