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Unit 12: Green Revolution

12.2 New Thrust Areas in Agriculture Notes

As a consequence of the new agricultural technology, India 1 as achieved relative self-sufficiency in
foodgrains and its imports became negligible. India is also able to accumulate large buffer stock of
rice and wheat so that she could face any eventuality resulting from drought in a particular year or
successively in two or three years.
But the achievements in agriculture cannot and should not make the Government complacent, because
there are still many thrust areas in which we must orient our agricultural policies in the interests of
agricultural growth with emphasis on sustainability and equity, Major thrust areas are the following:
(i) Output and area under coarse cereals has shown negligible improvement : Neither area nor
production of coarse cereals showed any significant improvement. Sufficient attention was not
paid so far to develop better HYV strains of these crops. Since major inputs were directed
towards wheat and rice, coarse cereals remained neglected and to improve their production
should be a major thrust area now.
(ii) Stagnation in the output of pulses : The production of pulses in 1970-71 was around 12 million
tonnes. In 1990-91, the peak year of foodgrains production, production of pulses was 14 million
tonnes. After 16 years in 2006-07 too the production of pulses is still 14 million tonnes. In most
years, however, production has been stagnant around 13 to 14 million tonnes. The per capita
consumption of pulses, which was 69 gm per day in 1971, has come down to 36 to 37 gm now.
This sharp decrease in the consumption of pulses is a cause of serious concern, more so for the
poor for whom pulses are the major source of protein.
Pulses are mostly grown under unirrigated conditions on poor soils and with low inputs. Out
of about 23 million hectares of area under pulses, only 2 to 3 million hectares are irrigated.
Pulses do not require large doses of fertilizers and pesticides. The development of short duration
varieties and improved dry farming technology has raised new hopes of raising the production
of pulses. Researches over the last decade have produced new varieties of pigeon-pea (Arhar)
which is ideally suited for poor farmers and it is possible to produce 2 to 3 tonnes per hectare of
pulse besides 6 to 8 tonnes per hectare of dry stalks for fuel. Similarly, the productivity of Chickpea
(Bengal gram), the dominant pulse crop, can also be increased by improved deep black soil
management technology. Both Arhar and gram taken together account for 60 per cent of total
production of pulses and if efforts are concentrated in improving their productivity, in the coming
years, there is considerable scope for making a break-through in the productivity of pulses.
(iii) Another thrust area is to boost the production of edible oils : India is not self-reliant in the
production of edible oils. The major oil seeds grown in India are groundnut, rape-seed, mustard,
sesamum. safflower, sunflower, and soyabean. The principal problem in oilseeds production is
low productivity. Not only India is way behind the developed countries, its productivity per
hectare does not compare favourably even with respect to that of China and other developing
countries. Imports of edible oils were barely of the order of ` 23 crores in 1970-71 but with
increasing domestic demand and our failure to meet it with domestic production, imports of
edible oils had gone up from ` 700 crores to ` 1,000 crores a year during the 1980s and exceeded
` 11,680 crores in 2003-04 but declined thereafter.
The Government of India set up the Technology Mission on Oilseeds which has proposed the
target of raising production of oilseeds to 16 to 18 million tonnes by 1989-90 and raising it
further to 26 million tonnes, by the year 2000-01.
These targets were to be achieved by (a) bringing additional oilseed areas under irrigation, (b)
modern crop technology, (c) crop substitutions, (d) better dry farming and (e) promoting oil
palm cultivation in 6,00,000 hectares.
The short term target for oilseed production (i.e. 16 to 18 million tonnes by 1989-90) was fulfilled.
The long range target (of 26 million tonnes by 2000 A.D.) was, however, achieved in 2004-05.
Between these two years, production oilseeds ranged between 21 million tonnes and 16 million
tonnes, forcing the Indian Government to resort to large import of oilseeds. Production of
Safflower and Soyabean, however, has been the most promising.

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