Question

What was the Green Revolution? Mention two positive and two negative consequences of the Green Revolution.

Answer 1

Green Revolution was introduced to bring about revolutionary changes in agriculture especially in foodgrains like wheat and rice to increase production through high yielding varieties of seeds, fertilisers and scientific irrigation.

1. The government offered high yielding varieties of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and better irrigation facilities at subsidised prices to farmers.
2. The government fixed the prices also to purchase the produce of farmers at a given price.

Positive Consequences :-

1. In many parts, the stark contrast between the poor peasantry and the landlords produced conditions favourable for left wing organisations to organise the poor peasants.
2. It resulted in the rise of what is called the ‘Middle peasant sections’ who were farmers with medium size holdings who benefitted from the changes and soon emerged politically influential in many parts of country.

Negative Consequences :-

1. This created a stark contrast between the poor peasantry and the landlords.
2. It delivered only a moderate agricultural growth i.e. a rise in rice and wheat production by raising availability of foodgrains in country. On the other hand it increased polarisation between the classes and regions like Northern States i. e. Punjab, Haryana, West-UP become agriculturally rich but others remained backward.