A Harvest of Plenty

Over the past 75 years, India has turned from a ship to mouth’ situation to being more or less self-sufficient in the basic staples

- ASHOK GULATI

As India celebrates its entry into Amritkaal (an envisaged golden era from 2022 to 2047, the century of Independence), it is worth asking what India’s biggest achievements in agriculture have been. There is no doubt that over the past 75 years, India’s agriculture landscape has transformed significantly. The biggest transformation has been turning India from a ‘ship to mouth’ situation in the mid’60s to being more or less self-sufficient in basic staples with some exportable surplus of cereals. It is well known that the two successive drought years in the mid-’60s exposed India’s vulnerability. It was unable to feed its population and had to rely on heavy imports of wheat— almost 10 million metric tonnes (mmt) a year—under Public Law 480 of the USA against rupee payments as India did not have enough foreign exchange to buy from global markets. The country soon realised that if it was to stand as a sovereign nation, it would need self-sufficiency in basic staples like rice and wheat.

It is this political realisation that paved the way for the famous Green Revolution. Many of us who grew up during that period are aware of the name of American plant breeder Norman Borlaug, who had developed new dwarf varieties of wheat in Mexico, and it was the import of 18,000 tonnes of seeds of those high-yielding varieties (HYV) of wheat that led to the Green Revolution in India.

Indian plant geneticist M.S. Swaminathan played a critical role not only in facilitating the import of these seeds but also making them suitable for the Indian climate. That was the first big milestone of Indian agriculture. Both these stellar scientists, Borlaug and Swaminathan, have been globally recognised for their contribution to saving millions of lives through their scientific contribution.