New Delhi,President Pratibha Devisingh Patil and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in their public speeches in recent days have repeatedly stressed the need for the country staging the "second green revolution", forty years after the first green revolution had suddenly made India near self-sufficient in wheat and foodgrains within a short period after the first wheat crop heralding the new era in agriculture in India had stunned India and the world in April-May 1968..

In fact, the Prime Minister had been urging the agricultural scientific community and the Ministry of Agriculture led by Mr. Sharad Pawar, for staging the second green revolution almost from the time he had taken office on May 22, 2004.The latest such appeal was made just a month ago, on April 11, at a function where he was present with the Agricola Award by the Director General of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).The President made this app0eal again on May 26 at Srinagar.

Because it is forty years since the first wheat crop of the Green Revolution genre was harvested in April –May 1968, most people of India. Particularly the younger generation, may not be aware what the "Green Revolution" actually was. Let us, therefore, recount in short, the "who", the "what" the "how" and the "where" of this great event in not only India's history but also of the world at large.

Ever since India became free and during the World War II days preceding this event, India was surviving, after the great famine of 1943, with a "ship to mouth" existence. Before the end of the War, India was under a strict "rationing "system in the urban areas at least. Farmers were following the traditional system of agriculture with seeds with low productivity and mainly cow dung for fertilizers.

After the war, when population started rising and demands for food grains growing the food grains surplus countries such as the United States started supplying large volumes of wheat to India, not free of cost, but on payment in local currency, that is the rupee, under the US Public Law(PL) 480..

Due to efforts by the Union and the State Governments, the production of food grains did continue to rise and Dr. Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, the Food and Agriculture Minister in the nineteen fifties, had taken the bold step of abolishing the rationing system.

Food grains production rose to 82,70 million tonnes (mt) in 1964-65 from a meager 54.91 mt in 1949-60.This however, had not stopped import of food grains, which had risen to 7.46 mt in 1965, At this crucial period, particularly after the September 1965 war with Pakistan, India suddenly found herself stricken by two successive droughts in 1965 and 1966. A frantic call from the Prime Minister to the President of the United States for enhanced dispatch of PL 480 wheat brought forth a huge supply of 10 mt 1966 and 8.6 mt in 1967. These supplies had averted the impending famine in parts of India.

Largely unknown to the general people, the agricultural scientists of India led by Dr. B. P. Pal. Dr. M. S Swaminmathan, Dr. A. B. Joshi, Dr. M. V. Rao Dr. Mathur and a host of other scientists ,enthused by the well known farm scientist of the USA, Dr. Norman Borlaug, the then Agriculture Minister C. Subramaniam and Agriculture Secretary B .Sivaraman, had started procuring new wheat seeds developed at the Mexican Government – Rockefeller Foundation Office of Special Studies .An order to import 250 tons of Lerma Rojo and Sonora 64 was placed with the Office (it later became the International Centre for Improvement of Wheat and Maize(CIMMYT).

Set for planting mostly at the Pusa Institute of New Delhi) by the first week of October, the seeds came later because of the Indo-Pakistan war. But the result at the end of the season was most encouraging. So, ignoring opposition by from many quarters, Mr. C .Subramaniam ordered the import of 18,000 tonnes of Lerma Rojo seeds from Mexico, perhaps the largest consignment of seeds ever imported by any country.

The seeds, ordered in early 1966 came much before the Rabi season of 1966-67

About 240,000 hectares were covered by the new weeds in the Rabi season of 1966-67

and the seeds grown on those lands were stored at the Pusa Institute and the Govind

Ballabh Pant Institute of Agricultural Technology, Nainital. Dr. Borlaug in his speech in 1996 at New Delhi had said that the farmers had to pay Re.1 per seed (repeat, Re.1 per seed) which were planted mostly in Punjab, Haryana and Western U.P.

When the wheat was harvested in April- May 1968, the production was so bountiful that schools had to be closed in Punjab to enable farmers store the wheat. The production rose from 12.30 mt in 1964-65 to 16.50 mt in 1967-68 The production now (2007-08) has gone up to about 77 mt (final figures will come next year). After the first crop of wheat with the new seeds called in India Sonalika and Kalyan Sona gave bountiful productivity, the USAID chief Dr.William S. Gaud had called the harvest the "Green Revolution"

What had caused the green revolution was a dramatic change in the genetic characteristic of the new seeds, which made the plants shorter in height and, the energy gained from new seeds, irrigation and fertilizer application was diverted to produce more grains than vegetative matter, in short yielding a higher harvest index.(Ratio between the weight of the grains and the total weight of the plants including the stems, the leaves and the grains) The agent in bringing about this genetic change was a wheat gene from Japan called Norin-10.

The Directorate of Wheat Research at Karnal is now seeking a procedure- genetic or otherwise – to drastically change the harvest index of the wheat grown now so that the average productivity (yield per hectare) to something like eight tonnes per hectare compared to a little more than four tones a hectare on an average in many areas of India.

The new wheat being contemplated is called the "super wheat". This high productivity is expected mostly from the North West Plains Zone which includes Punjab, Haryana, North Rajasthan and West Uttar Pradesh. The idea is to produce 109 million tonnes a year by the year 2020.

It is not yet certain if a new gene will be introduced in wheat seeds available today so that it gives higher productivity as had the first green revolution wheat's had done. The current seeds, dominated by PBW 343 in Punjab at least have not done badly even now. This year's average productivity is estimated at 4.4 tonnes a hectare which has given Punjab a total yield of more than 12 million tones so far .This is good but not good enough for production of 109 mt by 2020.

Source - NPA

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