The document summarizes the impacts of the Green Revolution in Punjab, India. It led to increased food production through high-yielding seed varieties and increased fertilizer/irrigation use, alleviating famine risks. However, excessive agricultural inputs also caused environmental degradation over time, including water contamination, loss of biodiversity, and increased pollution-related health issues like cancer. While food security improved initially, the long term sustainability of this model is now in question due to soil quality declines and overuse of natural resources.

1. The Green Revolution in
PUNJAB

2. The slide is prepared by-
 Shashank Agarwal
 Shivansh Bajaj
 Shashank Gupta
 Srikant Sharma
 Shreya Sinha
 Shashwat Shalvi
 Shubham Dubey

3. WHY GREEN REVOLUTION ???
 Between 1947 and 1967, efforts at achieving food self-
sufficiency were not entirely successful.
 Efforts until 1967 largely concentrated on expanding the
farming areas. But starvation deaths were still being
reported in the newspapers, population was growing at a
much faster rate than food production.
 This called for drastic action to increase yield.
 The action came in the form of the Green Revolution.

4. 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.

6. LEADER OF GREEN REVOLUTION
 Swaminathan is known as "Indian Father of Green
Revolution" for his leadership and success in introducing
and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat in
India.

7. ORIGIN
 India was on the brink of mass famine in the early 1960s
because of its rapidly growing population.
 Famine in India, once accepted as inevitable, has not
returned since the introduction of Green Revolution crops.
 So introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds and the
increased use of fertilizers and irrigation , which provided
the increase in production needed to make India self-
sufficient in food grains, thus improving agriculture in
India.

9. “MIRACLE SEED’S” THE CAUSE OF HIGH YIELD
 From 10,000 years, farmers had produced their own seeds
,on their own land,
And let nature take it course in renewal and enrichment
of seed.
 In 1950, Borlaug created sem-dwarf seed high yield
seed.This seed bring
A new religion of Green Revolution, which promise
abundance through
“MIRACLE SEEDS” also known as “HYV(high yield variety)
of seed”.
 In 1960’s, India agricultural policies were adjusted to
promote and utilise
this new seeds known as New Agricultural Strategy.

10. Myth Of High Yield Variety(HYV)
 The term "high-yielding varieties" is a misnomer,
because it implies that the new seeds are high
yielding of themselves. The distinguishing feature of
the seeds, however, is that they are highly responsive
to certain key inputs such as fertilizers and irrigation
water.
 In the absence of additional inputs of fertilizers and
water, the new seeds perform worse than indigenous
varieties. The gain in output is insignificant compared
to the increase in inputs. The measurement of output
is also biased by restricting it to the marketable
elements of crops.

11. High Yield for loss of Genetic Diversity
 In a country like India, crops have traditionally been bred
to produce not just food for humans, but fodder for
animals and organic fertilizer for soils. In the strategy for
the Green Revolution, multiple uses of plant biomass seem
to have been consciously sacrificed for a single use.
 An increase in the marketable output of grain has been
achieved at the cost of a decrease in the biomass
available for animals and soils from, for example, stems
and leaves, and a decrease in ecosystem productivity due
to the over-use of resources.

13. Positive effects of Green Revolution
 Today, Punjab produces 1% of rice, 2% of wheat and 2% of
cotton of the world, leading all the states in per hectare
yield of all these crops.
 Its per capita income (2006) at Rs 28,605 is way above the
national average of just Rs 6,929.
 Punjab also claims a 100% rural electrification as well as
almost 99% connectivity of villages by road against the
national average of just over 40%

14.  The real GDP growth of Punjab from 2007-08 to 2008-09
has been about 14% as compared to its neighbor Haryana
that grew at about 18% during the same period.
 Since the green revolution in the 1960’s, a period which
saw a huge increase in technological advancements and
increase in new modern farming practices, it has become
the nation’s leader in production of commodities such as
rice, wheat and a wide variety of general produce.

15. Annual Growth Rate Of Food Grain
Production B/W 1960-1986
States % growth rate
Punjab 6.4
Haryana 4.7
Gujrat 3.4
Uttar Pradesh 3.2
Rajasthan 2.4

16. Negative effects of Green Revolution
 Punjab consumes highest amount of fertilizers in the
country, amounting to almost 10% of the national
consumption with just 1.5% of the geographical area of
the country.
 the water level in Punjab has been falling by 50 to 70 cm
every year.
 And already, 97% of the cultivable land is under plough
indicating no further expansion of the cultivable land. In
such a situation, the chances of long term sustainability of
the supernatural productivity levels are very dim.

17. According to a research done by Punjab Agricultural
University in 2007, Punjab has already lost 5.1 mn tonnes
of nitrogen, 2.5mn tonnes of phosphorous and 4.7mn
tonnes of potassium, each one of these being very crucial
for the crops to grow and provide nutritional value.

18. Is this growth SUSTAINABLE ????

19. “We can say that Punjab is dying now. There is no
doubt. Punjab is the food basket of India. Now we
can say it is the disease basket.”

20. Effects of Pesticides ,Fertilizers and
Insecticides
 This boom in production has also seen India rise to
become the world’s second largest producer and exporter
of cotton, two-thirds of which is grown in the Punjab
region.
 It is suspected however that fifty years of increased
productivity has been fuelled by the excessive use of
fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides.
 Food grain production, which stood at a mere 50 million
tons in 1948–49, had increased almost fourfold to 198
million tons by the end of 1996–97 from an estimated 169
million hectares of permanently cropped land.

21. The Silent Fields – Pesticide Poisoning in
Punjab
 Pesticides have degraded the environment to worst case
possible .
 Due to green revolution we have used lots of fertilizers,
pesticides and insecticides and that’s why our soil, water
and air has been totally polluted

22. Health Hazards due to pesticides
 The worst problem with the pesticides is that it has
contaminated drinking water very severely.
 It may not be wrong to say that “PUNJAB IS BECOMING
HOTSPOT FOR CANCER IN INDIA”.
 Most of the wildlife once found in the region such as
sparrows, owls and even eagles have long since vanished.

23.  Pesticide exposure can cause a range of neurological
health effects such as memory loss, loss of coordination,
reduced speed of response to stimuli, reduced visual ability,
altered or uncontrollable mood and general behavior, and
reduced motor skills.
Effects of arsenic and heavy metal poisoning.

24. Water Contamination
 Fertilizers and pesticides via water runoff , flow directly
into storm drains and bodies of water causing
contaminated water resources.
 Algae glooms are a result of the excess nitrogen and
phosphorus from runoff that goes into lakes and ponds.
 Algae blooms also decrease the amount of oxygen in the
water killing fishes.

26. Soil Contamination
 Soil contamination or soil pollution is caused by the
presence of xenobiotic (human-made) chemicals or other
alteration in the natural soil environment.
 It is typically caused by industrial activity, agricultural
chemicals.
 The most common chemicals involved polynuclear
aromatic hydrocarbons (such as naphthalene and
benzo(a)pyrene), pesticides, lead, and other heavy
metals.

27.  Pesticides decrease biodiversity in the soil because they
do not just kill the intended pest; they often kill many of
the other small organisms present.
 The excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides have hugely
contributed towards degradation of the quality of soil.

28. A Case Study about Green Revolution in
Faridkot(Punjab)
 A research tells us that “Fifty five people have died of
cancer in the past eleven years. Many children have been
born disabled and died.”
 “It started from 1995, due to the cotton belt. The
American bollworm was the problem. In three months
they were spraying every three days. The recommended
amount is three to four times in three months. They were
using these without hand gloves or masks. Health
problems started from 1997-98. People started to get
many types of cancer.”

29.  For nearly 10 years this excessive pesticide used and then
‘Bt Cotton’ was introduced. A genetically modified strain,
it naturally produces chemicals which harm and kill
attacking pests.
 According to the ongoing research “Bt Cotton was good
but the fertility of the land was gone. From 2004-2007 we
used less [pesticides] but the productivity went down so
use went up again to seven to eight times per three
months. That’s been the same ever since.”
 For several decades villagers prefered Productivity before
health. With little to no advice from local government
about safe usage practices, overuse has been unabated
and the potential health implications ignored.
 Due to this the frequency of cancer cases in the village
increased tremendously and the rate of increase of
‘cancer villages’ are scaring people within the region.

30.  The accumulation of toxins in local ecosystems has
rendered this village silent. That silence is mirrored in the
villagers of Punjab whose voices are seldom heard in this
remote corner of the country.

31. Impacts of Green Revolution
 Positive impacts on poverty reduction and lower food
prices were driven in large part by green revolution.
 The rapid increase in agricultural output resulting from
the Green Revolution came from an impressive increase in
yields per hectare.
 Crop genetic improvement focused mostly on producing
high-yielding varieties (HYVs), but the decrease in time to
maturity was also an important improvement for many
crops, allowing for an increase in cropping intensity.
 Due excessive use of pesticides , fertilizers and
insecticides quality of soil has been badly detoriated.

32.  Due to agricultural runoff , soil erosion and dumping of
wastes into rivers has increased the concentration of
heavy metals like arsenic into water and thus making it
unfit for consumption and daily usage.

34. Conclusion
 The example of Green Revolution in Punjab shows that
this speedy transformation from subsistence to
commercialized agriculture has had enormous cultural,
social, economic and ecological effects.
 The time is now ripe for the second green revolution .
India has tremendous export potential in agriculture in
present era of globalization.
 But ,the second green revolution should focus on :-
 Organic Farming
 Less use of such pesticides and fertilizers that have
fatal effects on human health , quality of soil and
water quality.
 Improving rural roads , irrigation facilities and rural
electrification.