How has the Green Revolution in some areas resulted in short-term gains but long-term losses to farmers?

Green revolution came in the five-year plan of 1951 to make India free from the dependency of food grains from other parts of the world. Green Revolution is a revolution of using modern farming methods for higher yield. The short-term gains of green revolution were:

• H.Y.V seeds stand for High Yield Variety seeds were started being used in the cultivation of crops. These are better quality seeds which increase the yield and enables the farmers to go for multiple cropping. Earlier the yield of wheat grown was 1300 Kg per hectare which increased to 3200 Kg per hectare.

• Modern methods of irrigation like electric tubewell were introduced which were able to irrigate much larger areas of land more efficiently.

• Chemical fertilizers and pesticides were used to produce better results in the production of crops.

• Use of modern farming machinery like tractors and threshers which made ploughing and harvesting faster.

The long-term losses of Green revolution to the farmers were:

• In some areas, green revolution resulted in a decline in fertility of soil due to excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

• Continued use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides resulted in soil pollution and groundwater pollution.

• HYV seeds need a large amount of water for irrigation which resulted in a decline in groundwater level. Groundwater is drawn through electric tubewell for irrigation.