The green revolution made the macro factors favorable. India became self sufficient. but in my personal view the development of the eco system required for any initiative to be sustainable did not happen completly. To take an example, if the land holding is small and a farmer is taking only one or to crops he/she needs a small tractor which is not available. now some companies are selling them but the efforts are far and wide. A vary large area of farming is depended on mother nature. The technical assistance infrastructure to small farmer is still to evolve completely. the last mile connectivity to the market is still an issue to be resolved completely.

The government and especially the agricultural labs / institutions have done a phenomenal job but the connect need a relook. The need is to create the structure and support environment. it could be roads, availability of electricity, funds or loans to farmers. Information about the scientific agriculture techniques, marketing support.

Dear TFM Chang

Sharing my fraternity of agricultural background, i have some points that i would like  to share:

1. M.S. Swaminathan' green revolution approach acted heavily in the favor of farmers whether they are rich or poor. There is not as such discrimination among farmers based on their landholdings although interpersonal relationships with executives have a significant factor which proves damaging for poor farmers.

2. Agricultural productivity has increased manifold in past decades with the accessibility of finance, high-yield crop varieties and application of modern agricultural techniques but availability of these facilities depends on size of landholdings (acre size). Here small landholding farmers suffers as compared to reach and larger landholding farmers.

Regards

sheetal

Dear TFM Chang,

I'm not sure if it helps you, but there is a film that gives more information.

The name of the film is " Bitter seeds" (2012), directed by Micha Peled

I hope it comes in handy.

Regards,

Zahra.

Thanks to Norman Ernest Borlaug (March 25, 1914 – September 12, 2009) "The Man Who Saved A Billion Lives" for Green Revolution as his initial success in Mexico that was repeated in India by his students in collaboration with scientists at IARI. The initial success of green revolution in India was due to breeding but after few years it was NPK and irrigation facility from govt. sponsored projects. We all harvested the seeds of green revolution in India. The situation of farmers also increased a bit but the present situation is not good for poor farmers. The initial investment (on seeds, urea, pesticides, water, etc) is large and small farmers not able to store the crop and thus won't get good prize of the crops. There is a nexus of govt agents and dealers that are responsible for the present situation. The farmers are unable to get the prize they deserve and thus there is a serious problem. The Mandi prizes get very low during the harvest season so farmers are getting low prizes that effects the poor farmers hard but rich farmers can buffer under this situation. But laughing thing is that despite such low purchases from farmers the general public needs to pay increased prize every year.

Till now the GM crops in India are from International companies so the perception is made a bit negative. The education among farmers is low that adds more to this issue. But in dew course, we need the GM crops as feeding a GM crop would be ok then ignoring the deaths of malnourished and diseased population.

The green revolution made the macro factors favorable. India became self sufficient. but in my personal view the development of the eco system required for any initiative to be sustainable did not happen completly. To take an example, if the land holding is small and a farmer is taking only one or to crops he/she needs a small tractor which is not available. now some companies are selling them but the efforts are far and wide. A vary large area of farming is depended on mother nature. The technical assistance infrastructure to small farmer is still to evolve completely. the last mile connectivity to the market is still an issue to be resolved completely.

The government and especially the agricultural labs / institutions have done a phenomenal job but the connect need a relook. The need is to create the structure and support environment. it could be roads, availability of electricity, funds or loans to farmers. Information about the scientific agriculture techniques, marketing support.

Many thanks to all of you for bringing elements of an international debate that is still active. Awesome movie that I found on YouTube in full size.

It 'a fact that the poorest farmers have suffered greatly as a result of their impossibility or inability to access modern inputs. I did not know that there were/are, as the film shows, real forms of extortion to acquire the lands of these poor farmers in the event of their death and suicide in particular.

Now the debate has been revived with the introduction of OGMs. It 's true as you wrote me that their use prevents or reduces the use of chemicals with positive externalities for the ecological footprint. But you have not explained to me what are the products on which the interest of geneticists focused (in India or abroad). We know that cotton is one of the species, but I'm interested to know if the studies were continued also in favor of indigenous crops, typical of India (I know that in Africa this happened through Rockfeller Bill Gate Foundation in order to fight a pest of corn called striga). For example, what about the species that are the basis of the Indian diet and which are typical of that diet. I ask this because it is easy that studies on seed widespread in the world are funded by corporations or large research centers, but it is more difficult to find financing that concern indigenous seeds. Equally difficult is that programs for research centers are funded locally in close contact with the farmers for specific crops.

There was an attempt to introduce GM brinjal to India some years ago, but that was loudly opposed by environmental groups. That is about all at the moment, I think. The exploitation of the poorest farmers is historical, the Green Revolution may have changed traditional agriculture but did little to break the land grabbing networks. That, in any case, was not part of its mandate. The introduction of mechanised agriculture was opposed in many parts of the world (eg. the Dustbowl in Oklahoma) in different ways, that sort of thing did not happen in India.

Green Revolution in India began in the 1960s, through the introduction of high-yield crop varieties and application of modern agricultural techniques, and led to an increase in food production in India. It began after high-yielding wheat was first introduced to India in 1963 by American agronomist Dr. Norman Borlaug, who is known as 'The Father of the Green Revolution'. The introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds and the increased use of chemical fertilizers and irrigation led to the increase in production needed to make India self-sufficient in food grains, thus improving agriculture in India.

Measures adopted:

--Use of High Yielding Varieties (HYV) seeds

--Irrigation

--Use of insecticides and pesticides

--Consolidation of holdings

--Land reforms

--Improved rural infrastructure

--Supply of agricultural credit

--Use of (chemical) fertilisers

--Use of sprinklers or drip irrigation

Marginal farmers could not take the benefits of green revolution as taken by big farmers.

Effects of GMOs

According to a report by Daily Mail, every 30 minutes an Indian farmer commits suicide as a result of Monsanto’s GMO crops. In the last decade, more than 250,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves because of Monsanto’s costly seeds and pesticides. Globalization and monopoly have forced farmers to buy GMO seeds and since GMO crops have become pest resistant, the farmers have no choice but to purchase Monsanto’s popular herbecide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution_in_India

http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-foods/indian-farmers-committing-suicide-monsanto-gm-crops/

Following book is a good document for this topic

"The violence of the Green Revolution" by Bandana Siva

and the corresponding link is

http://www.trabal.org/courses/pdf/greenrev.pdf

The name is Vandana Shiva, and your are right, it is surely worth reading the book, which has become a classic on the GR.

To see the impact of agricultural modernization the following fqacts might tell a sad story: in 2016 Indiqa exported more than 10 million tons of rice for more than USD 5 billion. With this India was the world's biggest exporter of rice. At the same time a big numnber of people in India went hungry, had not three meals a day because they were to poor to purchase the food that obviously was there.

The Green Revolution helped to boost food production, but it made food prodution very expensive.

Similary is happening with GM crops. It comes to expensive for farmers to produces such crops and when anything goes wrong then farmers face huge indebtedness as they needed often to take loans to start GM crop production.

To enhance food security requires to remove poverty. That is more important than to produce more and more just to benefit the macro economy through food exports.

Vandana Shiva is the author of several journal articles and books about the effect of GMO agriculture in India. You should retrieve her published work. Here attached a review article of mine that may assist you in this process. Good luck!