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The Green Revolution was designed to overcome
limitations of food grain production that
relied upon increasing the amount of fertile
land available for crops, as the only means
of expanding output. In North India, the
positive impact of the ‘revolution’
was largely felt in the states of Punjab,
Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh. However,
since it had its base in new technology,
particularly the utilisation of High Yielding
Variety (HYV) seeds, irrigation, chemical
fertilisers, pesticides and farm mechanisation,
the incremental gains from agriculture productivity
have started to stagnate, and in many places
it is decreasing.
Multiple problems confront agriculture
in the region, including:
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Over-exploitation
of ground water |
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Unreliability
of canal irrigation and power supplies |
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Pollution of ground
and surface water |
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Water logging
and soil salinity |
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Infestation of
crops by insect pests |
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Falling nutrient
levels in the soil |
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Uncertain and
unreliable agricultural markets |
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Crippling debts |
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Spurious chemicals
and pesticides |
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Mounting costs
of inputs, and of production |
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Land and asset
fragmentation |
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| Geographical
spread of projects |
The rice-wheat cropping system prevalent
in the region has led to a sharp fall in
the water table, deterioration in soil fertility
and environmental pollution. There is a
need to arrest this decline before it becomes
irreversible.
As a result, the government of Punjab set
up an advisory committee, under the chairmanship
of Dr SS Johl, which strongly recommended
the shifting of a substantial area from
wheat and rice to other crops. In the committee’s
opinion, meaningful shifts are possible
by encouraging farmers to plant more maize,
cotton, oilseeds, pulses, fruits and vegetables
fodder, agro-forestry and sugarcane.
The Trusts' strategy aims to facilitate
the implementation of the Johl Committee
Report on diversification in agriculture.
The sustainability of production and economic
profitability through reduced cost of production
and alternate channels of marketing became
the thrust areas of the Trusts' intervention
for revival of agriculture to the levels
of green revolution era.
Thus, the Trusts operationalised the ‘Reviving
the Green Revolution’ (RGR) initiative
in Punjab in 2002, to seek answers and solutions
to arrest the stagnation that had set in,
in agriculture in Punjab in the recent times,
due to the above reasons.
The Trusts' chief partners within the initiative
have been the many departments at the
Punjab
Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana,
which have been involved in the development
and demonstration of various innovative
concepts to farmers, and the department
of agriculture (DoA), government of Punjab
(GoP), Chandigarh, which has been instrumental
in upscaling the dissemination of the technologies
and package of practices developed by the
Punjab Agricultural University.
Reviving
the Green Revolution Cell
The overall success within the initiative,
coupled with a major expansion and coverage
under the projects, encouraged the Trusts
to upgrade the level of funding individual
projects to a centralised organisation with
a dedicated team. This, they did, by commencing
operations of the RGR cell, through a grant
of Rs5.65 million.
The cell is a registered body housed in
PAU with a formal, institutional structure,
and is responsible for deciding the priorities
of the thrust areas of funding in PAU, besides
monitoring the progress of ongoing projects.
Moreover, the cell also functions as an
idea incubator.
The key objectives of the RGR cell are
to:
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Support
researchable issues in agricultural
universities to fill in the gaps of
agricultural technologies developed
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Support large-scale
activities of universities for adoption
of technologies by farmers in prime
areas of concern in agriculture |
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Support development
departments of state governments and
the private sector in frontline extension
activities for increasing agricultural
productivity and augmenting economy
of farmers |
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Support activities
that build market linkages of farmers,
growth of subsidiaries, and encourage
agro-based entrepreneurship. |
The
RGR initiative covers several key projects
focusing on the following key areas:
Major
partnerships within RGR
Reviving the Green Revolution
– Tamil Nadu Agricultural University
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