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| Need of Sustainable Ever-Green Revolution | | | Dr. Banarsi Lal
Dr. Pawan Sharma
The green revolution made India self-sufficient in foodgrains production and ended precarious dependence on food aid and grain imports. The concept of evergreen revolution is, indeed, a sequel to the green revolution. Green revolution was triggered by the use of high-yielding crops varieties which required good amount of water, fertilisers and plant protection chemicals. It caused some distortions in the cropping pattern and led to some unwarranted ecological ramifications in terms of degradation of natural resources such as soil, water and emergence of new insect--pests, diseases and weeds in different crops. Presently there is dire need of an everlasting or evergreen revolution. The major objective of transforming the green revolution into an evergreen revolution is to expand it to all crops and in all regions of the nation with minimum adverse effects. This kind of an environment-friendly and natural resources-compatible evergreen revolution, covering all gamuts of agriculture and its allied fields and spanning all across the country is the need of the hour. Although there is spectacular advancement in the Indian agriculture but the overall productivity of the Indian agriculture still remains low compared to that of many other advanced countries. Still the Indian agriculture relies on the monsoon and this sector is badly affected by the extreme weather conditions. The scope for increasing the area under crops has also reduced. The size of land holding is getting smaller and fragmented. Agricultural marketing is suffering from some formidable disabilities and farmers are neither getting adequate nor efficient reasonable returns for their farm produce. Agriculture labour is turning scarce and costly.
The term 'Green Revolution' was coined by William Gaud of the United States in 1968.With Green Revolution the production and productivity of crops increased but it had some negative effects on the society and environment. With the increase in population, per capita land and water availability is declining. There is dire need to increase the food and other agricultural technologies by adopting some frontier agricultural technologies. There is need of Ever-Green Revolution that can increase the food grain production per unit of land and water for the increasing population and increase the income and employment among the farmers. A paradigm shift is needed in our agricultural research, extension and development strategies to mitigate the food grain problem. Evergreen Revolution can help to produce more crops from the available land, water and labour resources without effecting the ecological system and society. There is need to adopt the cropping or farming system approach to increase the income and employment. The research should not focus only on a single commodity but to the entire crops production system. The transition from the fatigue Green Revolution to an Evergreen Revolution needs a shift from crop-centered approach to the integrated farming based approach. In order to double the Indian farmers' income by 2022 agricultural scientists have the open opportunities to design the different farming systems. There is need to promote the ecofriendly-technologies and traditional knowledge of the farmers should be blended with the frontier agricultural and allied sectors technologies. Industrial countries are responsible to increase the temperature, sea level, precipitation and ultraviolet radiation. In developing countries most of the jobs are provided by the agricultural sector. In India 70 per cent of the livelihoods are provided by the agricultural industries. Smaller the farm, greater the efforts are needed to increase the income of the farmers. Employment is affected by the import of different agricultural commodities. There is need to put more attention on the post-harvesting technologies. There is a need to develop an approach not only to develop ecologically sound technologies for different areas but also to facilitate their utilization at gross root level.
The green revolution gave a sudden boost to the production and productivity of major cereals. Yet, there are several challenges and downstream consequences being faced by the Indian farmers. The impact of Green Revolution remained confined to the assured irrigated areas. The agricultural research has success to selected crops. There is a great difference between the actual and potential yields. Deterioration of soil health, ground water depletion, gap between rich and poor, regional imbalance, environmental pollution etc. are the consequences of intensive agriculture following Green Revolution. There is need to rectify the regional disparities, technological empowerment, food insecurity, fatigued green revolution, malnutrition etc. Many efforts have been made for rural upliftment. We have certain noteworthy achievements in the last 6 decades. We launched green revolution, yellow revolution, white revolution and also blue revolution in our country. But these uni-coloured and uni-dimensional revolutions are not sufficient. We need the techno-colour or multicolour revolutions. Our ex-President Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam emphasised that our country can become developed country by 2020.He initiated a scheme Providing Urban Facilities in Rural Areas(PURA) through four connectivities viz., physical, economic, electronic and spiritual to be brought in a cost-effective way. Now many experts are thinking for second green revolution. Our country needs to move towards ever-green revolution from green revolution. While working scientifically now the aspects of ecology and environment are kept in mind. In agriculture, we need to minimize the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides.
Technology choice have a critical impact on many aspects of agricultural development, especially the way we choose it, the way we innovate and design them and the way we deliver them to masses. Technology must be carefully chosen to enable local people to acquire and imbibe knowledge according to their needs and environment. The technologies should be made in such a way that they upgrade their traditional skills and capabilities, minimize fatigue ,reduce drudgery, be innovative ,assured added value to existing methods of operation, generate employment, use local resources in both men and materials, need low capital investment ,low cost, be capable of replication and adoption, blend harmoniously with existing eco-systems leading to tangible improvements in the living conditions and self-sustained development of the farmers. It is necessary to develop and introduce appropriate technologies coupled with sound delivery systems which ensure economic and ecological sustainability and optimum use of local resources emphasizing on capacity building and technological empowerment, particularly small and marginal farmers. New agricultural technologies are of limited value if they are not adopted by the farmers due to their unsuitability to particular socio-economic and agro-climatic conditions. Many of improved agricultural technologies are partially adopted by the farmers or totally rejected by them. Main reasons of low adoption of technologies are: economically not viable, unavailability, not matching with the farmers needs and not compatible with their farming system. Mostly the agricultural technologies are not appropriate for small and marginal farmers. In conventional researches, there was negligible involvement of the farmers. These factors compel the extension personnel and researchers to shift to more farmer-oriented, holistic and interdisciplinary approach for technology development and its dissemination. There is need to involve the farmers for assessment and refinement of technology. The success of the efforts to transform the green revolution into an evergreen revolution would depend largely on how well the mooted programmes and schemes are implemented. |
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