THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF THE GREEN REVOLUTION IN PUNJAB (INDIA)

Bespreking van het baanbrekende boek “The Violence of the Green Revolution” van Vandana Shiva, geschreven in 1991, in het kader van de cursus Stad, Platteland en Milieu aan de KUN, maart 2001.

Study-subject: Stad, platteland en milieu (cursus OS 2002)

University: Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen

Nijmegen, 5 March 2001Guus GeurtsStudentnummer: 9912460

Introduction

In this paper I will use the models of “Pressure and Relief” and “Access to Resources” which come from the book “At Risk – natural hazards, people’s vulnerability, and disaster” written by Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and Wisner in 1994 and reprinted in 1997. I will apply these two models to describe the causes and effects from the Green Revolution in Punjab in India. This province is lying in the Northwest of India at the border with Pakistan, and has through five big rivers streaming in it naturally a high fertility and also a high population density. Of the total area of 50.38 lakh hectares of Punjab, 42 lakh hectares are under agriculture. Since 1965 the Green Revolution has taken place in this countrystate.

For this paper I use the book from Vandana Shiva ‘The violence of the Green Revolution– Third world agriculture, ecology and politics’, written in 1991. To my opinion this book should be on the compulsory literature list of each student which studies environment and/or development of third word countries, and also for agricultural students both in the North and South. The strong part of this book is the comparison she makes between the western and traditional Indian vision on development in agriculture. This is a clash between thinking in balances in ecological and social systems, and thinking in economic growth with externalising negative effect. Her conclusion is that applying the western vision by the Green Revolution only brought disaster to most of the people and the ecological system.

In chapter two I will describe the pressure and release model from Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and Wisner. In chapter three I will apply this model to the situation in Punjab after the Green Revolution, according to the book of Vandana Shiva. In chapter four I will describe and apply in the model of Access to Resources of Blaikie et al., to the situation in Punjab. I will end with the conclusions.

Note: Because I like the words which Vandana Shiva chooses and the integration of all elements in her text, so much, a lot of this paper is coming directly from her book. When I use her words literally, you will find this by the page in her book in brackets. The most of chapter three is also coming from this book.

2. The Pressure and Release model

Although this model is constructed specially in cases that lead to disasters, it is also applicable to the Green Revolution. The model consists of five parts (Blaikie 1997 p.23):

1 Root causes  2 Dynamic pressures  3 Unsafe conditions  Disaster  Hazards

This process means the progression of vulnerability

Root Causes

In the model :

  1. Limited access to power, structures or resources
  2. Ideologies like political or economic systems

Root causes or underlying causes are ‘a set of well-established, widespread processes within a society and the world economy. The most important root causes that give rise to vulnerability (and to produce vulnerability over time) are economic, demographic, and political processes. These affect the allocation and distribution of resources between different groups of people.’ (Blaikie 1997 p.24)

Dynamic pressures

In the model:

  1. Lack of local institutions, training, appropriate skills, local investment, local markets, press freedom and/or ethical standards in public life
  2. Macro-forces like rapid population growth, rapid urbanisation, arms expenditure, debt repayment schedules, deforestation and/or decline in soil productivity

‘Dynamic pressures are processes and activities that ‘translate’ the effects of root causes into the vulnerability of unsafe conditions (…) that have to be considered in relation to the types of hazard facing those people. These include reduced access to resources as a result of the way regional or global pressures such as rapid population growth, epidemic disease, rapid urbanization, war, foreign debt and structural adjustment, export promotion, mining, hydropower development, and deforestation work through to localities.’ (Blaikie p.24)

Unsafe conditions

In the model:

  1. Fragile physical environment, like dangerous locations or unprotected buildings and infrastructure
  2. Fragile local economy, like livelihoods at risk or low income levels
  3. Vulnerable society, like special groups at risk or lack of social institutions
  4. Public actions, like lack of disaster preparedness or prevalence of endemic disease

‘Unsafe conditions are the specific forms in which the vulnerability of a population is expressed in time and space in conjunction with a hazard’ (Blaikie p.25). Examples of this unsafe conditions are people having to live in dangerous locations, people having little food entitlements, or entitlements that are prone to rapid disruption. The difference between unsafe and vulnerable is that people are vulnerable and live in or work under unsafe conditions. So vulnerable is not used in regard to livelihoods, buildings, settlement locations, or infrastructure. (Blaikie)

Hazards

In the model:

Earthquake, High winds (cyclone, hurricane, typhoon), flooding, vulcanic eruption, landslide, drought and/or virus and pests.

Most of the mentioned hazards are natural caused hazards, although in some there is also a manmade component.

Disaster

In the model:

Risk = Hazard + Vulnerability

The disaster is only happening when hazard and the vulnerability combined are big enough to lead to a disaster. At this point the physical hazard triggers to create a disaster.

3. Application of the Pressure and Release model in Punjab

By applying this model I use particularly the book of Vandana Shiva ‘The violence of the Green Revolution – Third world agriculture, ecology and politics’. ‘Two major crises have emerged on an unprecedented scale in Asian societies during the 1980s. The first is the ecological crisis and the threat of life support systems posed by the destruction of natural resources like forests, land, water and genetic resources. The second is the cultural and ethnic crisis and the erosion of social structures that make cultural diversity and plurality possible as a democratic reality in a decentralised framework. The two crises are usually viewed as independent, both analytically as well as at the level of political action.’ (Shiva 1991 p.11) In this book she however connects the ecological and cultural crisis.

In this chapter I will try to structure her book by using the Pressure and Release model of Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and Wisner.

3.1 Root causes

The Green Revolution started around 1965 in Punjab. There were several root causes that lead to this development.

  • The western vision on development

Shiva defines in this vision ‘development’ as a strategy with the help of capital and technology, to combat scarcity and dominate nature to generate material abundance. In this vision ‘technology is a superior substitute for nature, and hence a means of producing growth, unconstrained by nature’s limits’ (p.15).

The Green Revolution is also used as a techno-politic strategy (combination of science and politics) ‘that would create abundance in agricultural societies and reduce the threat of communist insurgency and agrarian conflict’ (p.14). So with the help of foreign capital and experts, the goal was to stabilise the rural areas politically and create peace and prosperity in rural India.

  • The western vision on science

Science takes in this vision ‘a dual character. It offers technological fixes for social and political problems, but delinks itself form the new social and political problems it creates’ (p.21). ) ‘Through this split identity is created the “sacredness” of science.’ (p.21)

Shiva calls this the process decontextualisation, in which ‘the negative and destructive impacts of science on nature and society are externalised and rendered invisible. Being separated from their material and political roots in the science system, new forms of scarcity and social conflict are then linked to other social systems e.g. religion.’ (p.22) So also in Punjab along to this vision religious differences between Sikh and Hindus are the cause of conflicts, instead of the here mentioned root causes of the Green Revolution.

Comparable with Vermeersch in ‘De ogen van de panda’ (1988) who calls this the Science-Technology-Capital-system, Shiva says that the conceptual framework of western science is compatible with the needs of commercial capitalism. They ‘generate inequalities and domination by the way knowledge is generated and structured, the way it is legitimized, and by the way in which such knowledge transforms nature and society’ (p.23).

  • The western vision on agriculture

Although the agriculture of Asian ‘are almost as permanent as those of the primeval forest, of the prairie, or the ocean’, (Howard 1940 in Shiva p.25) they were regarded by western vision as primitive and backward. In the traditional agricultural systems people used their excellent knowledge to create a balance between the resources of nutrients and water. ‘Cropping systems include a symbiotic relationship between soil, water, farm animals and plants ‘(p.69). They were ‘preserving and building on nature’s process and nature’s paterns’ (p.26). This system was based on strengthening the ecological base of agriculture, and the self-reliance of the peasants of the country. This was the indigenous way of handling the food crisis after participation in 1947, also propagated by Gandhi.

The other was the exogenous way, and taking shape in American foundations and aid agencies. ‘This vision was based not on cooperation with nature, but on its conquest. It was based not on the intensification of nature’s processes, but on the intensification of credit and purchased inputs like chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It was based not on self-reliance, but dependency. It was based not on diversity but uniformity.’ (p.29) ‘The seed / chemical package sets up its own interactions with soils and water systems, which are, however, not taken into account in the assessment of yields.’ (p.69) As a result western expert ‘mistakenly believed that their technologies could substitute land, and chemicals could replace the organic fertility of the soils’ (p.104).

  • Pressure through the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the American Government, the World Bank, the seed and chemical multinationals, the central Government of India and the various agencies it controls.

American advisors and experts came with the aim to shift India’s agricultural research and policy ‘from an indigenous and ecological model to an exogenous, and high input one, finding, of course partners in sections of the elite, because the new model suited their political priorities and interests’ (p.29). Between 1952 and 1970 the mentioned organisations did everything to promote the Green Revolution, through for example education of Indian students, providing credit, forcing India to devaluate its currency and to provide favourable conditions for foreign investments, importing liberalisation, eliminating of domestic controls.

The main supporters of the Green Revolution strategy Subramaniam became agriculture minister in 1964, and Swaminathan became Director of IRRI (the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines) which with support from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations was developing new high yielding varieties of rice. Some of the mentioned organisations made sure that indigenous varieties were lost. For example due to pressure of the World Bank and IRRI the MPRRI was shut down. They had conserved 20,000 rice varieties and were doing research to develop a high yielding strategy based on indigenous knowledge of the Chattisgarh tribals. ‘In the Philippines, IRRI seeds were called “Seeds of Imperialism”. (p.44)’

Also the opening up of markets was important, when ‘American producers of fertilizer were anxious to ensure higher fertilizer consumption overseas to recoup their investment. The fertilizer push was an important factor in the spread of new seeds, because wherever the new seeds went, they opened up new markets for chemical fertilizers.’ (p.105) The use of chemical fertilizers was also pushed by international agencies, government policy, the World Bank and US AID.

  • The centralisation of politics that results in a central state which controls agricultural policy, finance, credit, inputs and prices of agricultural commodities.

‘A policy of planned destruction of diversity in nature and culture to create the uniformity demanded by centralised management systems.’ (p.12) Instead of the traditional vision of diversity, decentralization and democracy this western vision concentrates on the demands of uniformity of the market, centralization and militarization.

‘The rise of the market and rise of the state that was part of the Green Revolution policy led to the destruction of community and the homogenising of social relations on purely commercial criteria. The shift from internal farm inputs to centrally controlled external inputs shifted the axis of political power and social relations. It involved a shift from mutual obligations within the community to electoral politics aimed at state power for addressing local agricultural issues.’ (p.175)

3.2 Dynamic pressures

As a result of the root causes the Green Revolution started in Punjab around 1965.

The Green Revolution contains the following components which all can lead to dynamic pressures:

  • use of new crops (wheat) and new varieties (rice), the so cold High Yielding Varieties (HYV)

These ‘miracle’ seeds were designed to overcome the limits placed on chemically intensive agriculture by the indigenous seeds. They became ‘central to breaking out of nature’s limits and cycles.’ (p.36) The ‘miracle seeds’ of the Green Revolution transformed the ‘common genetic heritage into private property, protected by patents and intellectual property rights.

Peasants and plant breeding specialists gave way to scientists of multinational seed companies and international research institutions like CIMMYT and IRRI. Plant breeding strategies of maintaining and enriching genetic diversity and self-renewability of crops were substituted by new breeding strategies of uniformity and non-renewability, aimed primarily at increasing transnational profits and First World control over the genetic resources of the Third World. The Green Revolution changed the 10,000-year evolutionary history of crops by changing the fundamental nature of seeds.’ (p.63)

  • use of chemical fertilizers
  • use of pesticides
  • use of mechanisation and petroleum
  • intensive and accurate irrigation, mostly made possible by building of dams

High yields are not intrinsic to the seeds, but are a function of the availability of required inputs, which in return have ecologically destructive impacts.

As a result of these components of the Green Revolution a lot of negative effects occurred. Most of them were decreasing of access to resources as a result of regional pressures. The dynamic pressures I discern are land degradation, genetic erosion which resulted in explosive growth of pests in the crops, other negative ecological effects and poverty under the local population.

  • Land degradation caused by:

-water logging

-salinization of the soil

-desertification and water scarcity

-destroying water resources

-destruction of soil fertility

-micronutrient deficiency

-soil toxicity, by high use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers

-biomass reduction used for fodder and organic manure

The Green Revolution only functions properly when the physical environment, especially the availability of water was sufficient. This higher need for water was caused by ‘the shift from water prudent crops such as millets and oilseeds to monocultures and multicropping such as wheat and rice’, and by ‘the replacement of old varieties of wheat with new varieties of wheat and rice’ (p.125). So intensive irrigation was required mainly by building large dams and applying surface irrigation. (see also unsafe conditions and disasters)

The dramatic increase in water use has led to ‘a total destabilisation of the water balance in the region. The water cycle can be destabilised by adding more water to an ecosystem than the natural drainage potential of that system. This leads to desertification through waterlogging and salinisation of the land. Desertification of this kind is a form of water abuse rather than water use.’(p.128) ‘Land gets waterlogged when the water table is within 1.5 and 2.1 metres below the ground surface. (…) The rich alluvial plains of Punjab which have a very negligible slope suffer seriously from desertification induced by the introduction of excessive irrigation water to make Green Revolution farming possible.’ (p.129)

The problem salinity arises through intensive irrigation in arid regions. ‘In regions of scarce rainfall, the earth contains a large amount of unleached salts. Pouring irrigation water into such soils brings those salts to the surface and leaves behind a residue when the water evaporates.’ It is estimated that about 0.7 lakh hectares in Punjab (about one third of the total area), just like in one third of the world’s irrigated land, are salt affected and produce either no yields or very poor yields.

‘Where irrigation is dependent on ground water, the water table is declining at an estimated rate of one to one and a half foot every year, due to over-exploitation.’ (p.140) So half of the development blocks in the state cannot sustain any further increase in the number of tubewells.

‘The nutrient cycle, in which nutrients are produced by the soil through plants, and returned to the soil as organic matter is thus replaced by linear non-renewable flows of phosphorous and potash derived from geological deposits, and nitrogen derived from petroleum’ (p.104). This led to a western NPK-mentality, with high gifts of these three minerals. As a result deficiency of micronutrients as zinc, iron, copper, manganese and magnesium arose.

Soil toxicity arose through irrigation and high chemical fertilizer input, for example fluorine -, boron -, selenium and aluminium toxicity. It is ‘posing a threat to crop production as well as animal health’. (p.116)

As a result of the reductionist approach only the output of crops were counted, but not the loss in maintaining the conditions of productivity. These outputs have also to be uniform likes the central market wants them, and not divers like the traditional crops which partly were used for own food. ‘The indigenous cropping systems are based on internal organic inputs.’ (p.72) So they used straw from the harvested crops and other through westerns considered wastes to feed the farm animals, and/or to increase soil fertility. Also the animals provided organic manure. The new varieties were however selected by producing little straw, because otherwise as a result of high fertilizer input they would lodge and the crop would be lost. So the straw production was much lower, with negative effects on soil fertility through lower input of biomass. This process also occurred because millet and course-grain were replaced by wheat and grain.