Page 98 - DECO303_INDIAN_ECONOMY_ENGLISH

Unit 6: Agriculture in the National Economy

But, in rice, the picture has not been very motivating. Consequently, the sceptics believe that Notes
conventional Green Revolution breeding methods have come to a dead end. Whatever success
has been acquired in rice is the consequence of spreading the pioneering varieties to more and
more regions so that the country can realize the potential.
But this does not mean that we have exhausted all the latent potential of the prevailing HYV
varieties. Field trials in Punjab confirm the illustrated potential of 5.5 tonnes per hectare, but
real mean yields are around 4.25 tonnes per hectare. Evidently, one tonne of unharvested yield
potential exists in Punjab. Likewise, the situation in other wheat growing states points out the
gap between attainable and real yields to rise to over two tonnes per hectare. Mr Harish
Damodaran, hence, concludes: “Even with the current high yielding varieties, it is possible for
farmers in the Indo-Gangetic plain, which accounts for 18 million hectares out of 26 million
hectares under wheat to produce an additional 25 million tonnes of wheat by adopting improved
crop management practices and ensuring timely supply of inputs, attractive prices and so on. A
half-a-tonne increase in average per hectare rice yield can similarly generate an additional 20
million tonnes from the country’s 42 million-odd hectares area planted under paddy.”

A point frequently made by critics that as against average yield of 4 to 4.5 tonnes of wheat in
Punjab, the farmers in cold countries such as Netherlands raise about 8 tonnes per hectare, but
this comparison neglects one vital difference in the cropping systems of the two countries.
The famous agricultural scientist Dr M. S. Swaminathan stresses that it is unscientific to make
comparisons merely on the basis of individual crops, but it would be more scientific to compare
the cropping system as a whole.

Example: A farmer in Punjab may attain only 4 to 4.5 tonnes per hectare yield on spring
wheat of 140 days duration, however his counterpart in Netherlands attains 8 tonnes per hectare
on a 10-month winter wheat crop.
The difference is covered by the Punjab farmer by raising a rice crop during the same year
offering a yield of3 to 3.5 tonnes per hectare. He may also be raising a crop of potato or legume
or some short-duration vegetable. Evidently, for the Indian farmer, the more significant
consideration is the total yield during the year, instead of simply yield per crop.
Hence, you must understand that the transformation from a mono cropping to multi-cropping
system has facilitated the development of rice or wheat varieties of various maturities, which
have been integrated in the phenomenon explained as the Green Revolution. Evidently, the
success of the Green Revolution should be judged with relation to the over-all yield (income)
produced by the farmers per hectare in a year instead of in terms of productivity per hectare of
a single crop.

Did u know? Agricultural development is central to economic development of the country.

6.3.1 Future Prospects

It is important to note that scientists in India have been attempting to develop hybrid varieties
of rice and wheat so that the yield barrier functioning at present can be broken. In the instance
of rice, on-farm-trials of hybrid rice in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been
discovered to yield an average of 6.8 tonnes per hectare as against 5.2 tonnes attained from
traditional pure-line rice varieties. This amounts to an extra yield of 31 per cent viz., 1.6 tonnes
per hectare. In some instances, hybrid rice yield is even greater by 35 to 44 per cent than the
traditional varieties. In other words, gains from hybrid rice have been assessed to be 1.5 to 1.75
tonnes per hectare. In spite of success at on-farm trials, India has been able to attain only 0.15

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 93