Question

What are the important strategies for agricultural development followed in the post-independence period in India?

Answer 1

Indian agricultural economy was largely subsistence in nature before Independence. During the partition, about one-third of the irrigated land in undivided India went to Pakistan. After Independence, the immediate goal of the Government was to increase foodgrains production by

• switching over from cash crops to food crops;
• intensification of cropping over already cultivated land; and
• increasing cultivated area by bringing cultivable and fallow land under plough.

Later, the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP) and Intensive Agricultural Area Programme (IAAP) were launched. But two consecutive droughts during the mid-1960s resulted in a food crisis in the country.

New seed varieties of wheat (Mexico) and rice (Philippines) known as high yielding varieties (HYVs) were available for cultivation by the mid-1960s. India took advantage of this and introduced package technology comprising HYVs, along with chemical fertilizers in irrigated areas of Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat leading to fast agricultural growth. This spurt of agricultural growth came to be known as the ‘Green Revolution. This also gave a fillip to the development of a large number of agro-inputs, agro-processing industries and small-scale industries. This strategy of agricultural development made the country self-reliant in food grain production.

The Planning Commission of India focused its attention on the problems of agriculture in rained areas in the 1980s. It initiated agro-climatic planning in 1988 to induce regionally balanced agricultural development in the country. It also emphasized ‘ the need for diversification of agriculture and harnessing of resources for the development of dairy farming, poultry, horticulture, live- tock rearing and aquaculture.