Question

Answer the following question in about 150 words.

What are the important strategies for agricultural development followed in the post-independence period in India?

Answer 1

Strategies for Agricultural Development in Post-Independence India:

• Immediate Post-Independence Goals: Before independence, India’s agricultural economy was largely subsistence-based, and after partition, about one-third of the irrigated land went to Pakistan. The government's immediate goal to increase food grain production involved:
  1. Switching over from cash crops to food crops.
  2. Intensification of cropping over already cultivated land.
  3. Bringing cultivable wasteland and fallow lands under the plough to increase the total cultivated area.
• Intensive Area Programmes: To further boost production, the government launched the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP) and the Intensive Agricultural Area Programme (IAAP). However, two consecutive severe droughts in the mid-1960s led to a critical food crisis across the country.
• The Green Revolution (Mid-1960s): India took advantage of the newly available semi-dwarf High-Yielding Varieties (HYVs) of wheat from Mexico and rice from the Philippines. The government introduced a new “package technology” combining these HYV seeds with chemical fertilisers and assured irrigation in Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat. This rapid spurt of growth made the country completely self-reliant in food grain production.
• Growth of Secondary Industries: The success of the Green Revolution acted as a catalyst, giving a massive fillip to the development of numerous agro-input industries, agro-processing sectors, and localised small-scale village industries.
• Agro-Climatic Planning (1980s): In 1988, the Planning Commission initiated regional agro-climatic planning to address problems in rainfed areas and promote balanced agricultural development. This strategy strongly emphasised diversifying agriculture toward dairy farming, poultry, horticulture, livestock rearing, and aquaculture.