Mains Practice Questions

Approach

• Start with writing about the White revolution and its successes.
• Discuss the issues with the Green revolution and what it can learn from the success of white revolution.
• Suggest a way forward.

Introduction

The White revolution or Operation Flood became the world's largest dairy development programme. Within 30 years, Operation Flood helped double milk available per person in India, making dairy farming India's largest self-sustainable rural employment generator.

This success of the White revolution can be attributed to the cooperative or Amul model. The Amul Model gave farmers direct control over the resources they create, helping them direct their own development and market.

Body

Issues with Green Revolution

• Mono-Cropping: Green Revolution is primarily focused on food grains including wheat, rice, jowar, bajra and maize, etc. However, it is wheat and rice which has benefited the most.
• Regional Disparities: Green Revolution technology has given birth to growing disparities in economic development at inter and intra regional levels.
  
  • The most benefited areas are Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh in the north and Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the south..
• Benefiting Big Farmers: It has benefited the big farmers as they have the financial resources to purchase farm implements, better seeds, fertilizers and can arrange for regular supply of irrigation water to the crops.
• Disguised Unemployment: Farm mechanization under Green Revolution has created widespread unemployment among agricultural labourers in the rural areas.
• Environmental Degradation: Green Revolution has led to degradation of the planet’s natural environment that has taken place with the application of modern technological solutions and management methods for the pursuit of economic growth.

Lessons Learnt From White Revolution

• Local Systems’ Approach: Rather than ‘global (or national) scale’ solutions, the ‘local systems’ solutions as practised in the white revolution can be practised. For example:
  
  • The resources in the local environment must be the principal resources of the farming enterprise.
• Cooperative Farming: The principles of cooperative management in “natural farming” will result in better economic policies and better management methods to increase inclusion and improve environmental sustainability.
• Promoting Food Processing Industries: Milk is the least volatile because of the higher processing-to-production share.
  
  • The AMUL model is based on large procurement of milk from farmers’ cooperatives, processing, storing of excess milk in skimmed milk powder form during the flush season and using it during the lean season, and distributing milk through an organized retail network.
  • Thus, the government needs to promote the food processing units in agriculture.
  • In this context, the announcement by the government to create an additional 10,000 Farmer Processing Organisations along with the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund is all promising but needs to be implemented fast.
• Need for Market Reforms: The success of operation flood shows that there is a need for market reforms in APMC, overhauling the infrastructure of existing APMC mandis contract farming, etc

Conclusion

The essence of the success of the white revolution lies in its democratic economic governance. According to which enterprise must be of the people, for the people, and governed by the people too.

In this context, it is important that lessons learnt from the white revolution should be deployed to regreen the green revolution.