In which of the following states high yielding varieties of food grains were introduced as part of the first phase of Green Revolution (1966-72)? 1. Andhra Pradesh 2. Tamil Nadu 3. Punjab 4. Haryana Select the correct answer using the code given below:

Correct — D, 3 and 4 only. The first phase of the Green Revolution was a wheat revolution, and it was deliberately concentrated where irrigation was already assured — Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Dwarf Mexican wheat varieties needed heavy and reliable water and heavy fertiliser to deliver their yield, so they were introduced first in the districts that could supply both. Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are rice country, and the rice varieties that transformed their deltas came in the second phase during the 1970s and after, not in the 1966 to 1972 window the question specifies.

• (a)1, 2 and 3 — Puts both southern states inside the first phase and leaves Haryana out — the wrong way round on both counts, since Haryana was at the centre of the wheat revolution from the start.
• (b)2, 3 and 4 — Gets Punjab and Haryana right but adds Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu's gains came with high-yielding rice in the later phase, once the programme moved beyond wheat.
• (c)1 and 2 only — Names only the two southern states and excludes the two that actually carried the first phase.

The Green Revolution was a package rather than a seed. High-yielding dwarf varieties, assured irrigation, chemical fertiliser, pesticide, credit and a guaranteed price had to arrive together, because the new seeds out-yielded the old ones only when fed and watered. That package logic is why the programme began in a few districts rather than across the country, and why the districts chosen were the ones with canal and tubewell irrigation already in place.

Two institutions made the strategy work alongside the seed. The Agricultural Prices Commission, later renamed the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, gave farmers a price floor so that the risk of a big harvest crashing the market did not deter them, and the Food Corporation of India did the procurement. The wheat was based on Norman Borlaug's Mexican dwarf lines, adapted in India as Kalyan Sona and Sonalika. Honest qualification worth carrying: districts in the south, including Thanjavur and West Godavari, had already been selected for the earlier Intensive Agricultural District Programme, so intensive agriculture was not new to them — but the first phase of the Green Revolution itself, and its wheat, belonged to the north-west. The consequences of that concentration are still being managed, with groundwater in Punjab and Haryana falling and crop diversification away from the wheat and paddy cycle now the stated policy aim.

• The first phase of the Green Revolution ran from about 1966 to 1972 and was centred on wheat in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.
• The dwarf wheat varieties came from Norman Borlaug's Mexican material and were released in India as Kalyan Sona and Sonalika.
• High-yielding varieties respond to fertiliser and assured irrigation, which is why irrigated districts were chosen first.
• The Agricultural Prices Commission was set up in 1965 to give the new varieties a price guarantee, alongside the Food Corporation of India for procurement.
• High-yielding rice spread through the deltas of the south and east in the later phase, after the wheat programme had proved itself.

• Reading the question as being about the Green Revolution in general rather than its dated first phase.
• Assuming a state that grows a great deal of rice today must have been an early adopter.
• Confusing the Intensive Agricultural District Programme of the early 1960s with the Green Revolution proper.

Phase-and-period items turn on the dates in the stem; a state can belong to the story and still be outside the window the question names.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The first phase of the Green Revolution in India was centred mainly on which crop?

  • (a)Rice
  • (b)Wheat
  • (c)Maize
  • (d)Pulses

  Answer(b) Wheat — the dwarf Mexican wheat varieties were the breakthrough, and rice followed in the later phase.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following was set up in 1965 to recommend prices for agricultural produce in support of the new high-yielding varieties?

  • (a)The Food Corporation of India
  • (b)The Agricultural Prices Commission
  • (c)The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
  • (d)The Indian Council of Agricultural Research

  Answer(b) The Agricultural Prices Commission — later renamed the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices.