Among the most profound changes brought about in the Amrit Mahotsav 75 years, is the Green Revolution.
We have depicted in the graphics the spectacular growth in the production of some of the food and commercial agri crops.
From the state of net importer of several of these commodities, today India is a sizeable exporter of most of these, notably, wheat, rice and sugar. And relate this to a more than four-fold increase in the number of mouths to feed.
The trigger came in the mid-1960s. Two successive years of drought resulted in a steep decline in food production by a fifth, a drop of 17 million tonnes. There was the threat of famine and available food grains were rationed. There was also the problem of logistics in transferring the produce from the farms. Ten million tonnes of wheat were imported from the USA in two successive years. B Sivaraman, then secretary, Food & Agriculture, described it as ship-to-mouth years.
