Postcolonial developments: agriculture in the making of modern India

Abstract

Main road leading into Alipur, with the village pond to the right conversation while I turned the tape around, and then we launched into the discussion, parts of which are reproduced below.Like other places in northwest India, Alipur had witnessed a drastic transformation in agricultural practices after the introduction of the "green revolution," in which use of hybrid, high-yielding seeds had resulted in a fourfold increase in India's wheat output since the late 1960s.The green revolution combined the use of hybrid seeds with high doses of chemical fertilizer and intensive irrigation to obtain high yields. 3 Like the other farmers of Alipur, Ram Singh had planted only high-yielding varieties of wheat.While talking about the effects of green revolution agriculture on the land, Ram Singh contrasted the properties of chemical fertilizer with manure or desi fertilizer: 4 Ram Singh: Earlier it was like this, that no one knew about [chemical] fertilizer and people used to apply desi fertilizer.Now, they mostly use market fertilizer: it makes the soil weak and deficient.Otherwise, organic manure was the thing used most widely.And it used to yield a very good output.Now people want even more output.They are pursuing [planting] two or three crops, so the soil is getting weaker because of the fertilizer, and the taste is diminishing in this way.Compared with before, there are no elements [tatv]