"While Green Revolution has made India self-sufficient in food grains, it has also led to many unintended ecological and socioeconomic repercussions in the country". Discuss with the help of examples.

The key unintended ecological and socioeconomic repercussions of green revolution are as follows:

  • The improved dwarf varieties of wheat and rice required more water, use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The new development needed Integrated Pest Management and Integrated Nutrient Management. But this could not happen from government side. The large fertilizers, seeds and pesticides companies launched massive campaigns to sell their products and this led to inordinate use of these inputs resulting in alarming rate of groundwater depletion and soil degradation.
  • The lack of coherence between institutional credit, price support system and cost of inputs led to peasant indebtedness. They got burdened with debts from banks or moneylenders / commission agents.
  • The worst consequence of green revolution has been the terrific water pollution; salinity; water logging.
  • Usage of excessive fertilizers Pesticide chemicals causes serious damage to food quality.

As Green revolution was concentrated in only in some areas of India and also it was mainly dependent on machinery which requires high capital, it promoted inequalities and has widened the already existing gulf between the rich and the poor in the rural sector and also it increased regional inequalities.

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