The green revolution is part of India's history. The grey revolution is the future. At least that is what the blueprint for agricultural reforms, authored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, seems hell-bent on unleashing through Green Revolution II.
The agricultural reforms that are being introduced in the name of increasing food production and minimising the price risks that farmers continue to be faced with, will in fact culminate in the destruction of the productive capacity of existing farmlands and will most definitely lead to the further marginalisation of farming communities. Encouraging contract farming, future trading in agricultural commodities, land leasing, forming land-sharing companies, allotment of homestead-cum-garden plots, direct procurement of farm commodities and setting up of special purchase centres, as envisaged by the blueprint will drive a majority of the 600 million farmers out of subsistence agriculture.
The consequent increase in migration from the rural areas into urban centres will magnify the implications of all the shocking calculations that have been computed so far. The World Bank had in 1995 estimated that the number of people migrating from the rural to the urban centres in India by the year 2010 would be equal to twice the combined population of the UK, France and Germany. With the fundamental vision of Green Revolution II unfurled, New Delhi seems determined to compound the socio-economic chaos. Migration from rural areas is sure to multiply several times in the years to come, thereby creating an unprecedented political crisis.
In a country where 80 per cent of the farmers own less than two hectares of land, and only 5 percent of farmers have more than four hectares, the biggest challenge is to ensure that agriculture can be made more attractive for these small and marginal farmers. At the same time, within the green revolution areas—primarily in the Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, parts of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka—agriculture faces a severe crisis of sustainability owing to second-generation environmental effects. Intensive farming has destroyed the ability of the land to produce enough food, and the mining of ground water has pushed the water table to a precarious level. The green revolution has already turned sour. As a result, the Punjab and Haryana are fast heading towards desertification—a process that results in the inability to sustain the production levels achieved at the height of the green revolution.