Haryana Agriculture and Green Revolution: Crops and PYQs

Haryana came into being on 1 November 1966, and the Green Revolution began in the same season. The two events together made a small state one of the largest contributors of wheat and rice to the central pool, second only to Punjab. Flat land, canal water from the Yamuna and the Sutlej, a shallow water table that tube wells could reach and farmers willing to try new seed gave the state everything the new technology needed. Examiners come back to this chapter for the dates and names of the Green Revolution, the crop belt of a district, the dairy breeds and the research institutes clustered at Hisar and Karnal.

What the Green Revolution was

The Green Revolution was a package, not a single change. Its core was the high yielding dwarf wheat bred in Mexico, the Lerma Rojo and Sonora 64 varieties from which the Indian strains Kalyan Sona and Sonalika were developed. A dwarf plant puts its strength into grain instead of straw and does not fall over when heavily fertilised, so the seed worked only when chemical fertiliser, assured irrigation, pesticides and tractors came with it, supported by institutional credit, a minimum support price and government procurement. Norman Borlaug bred the wheat, M. S. Swaminathan led the Indian programme and is called the father of the Green Revolution in India, and C. Subramaniam was the agriculture minister who pushed it through. Wheat responded first, which is why the early years are often called the wheat revolution, and Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh were its heartland.

Crops and crop belts

The state divides neatly into two farming zones. The north and east, watered by the Western Yamuna Canal and by tube wells, grow the wheat and paddy rotation, and the basmati of the Karnal and Taraori tract is exported from there. The dry south west, from Bhiwani and Mahendragarh to Sirsa, depends on canal tails and on less water hungry crops, so mustard, bajra, gram and cotton dominate. Sugarcane goes to the mills of Yamunanagar, Karnal, Panipat and Shahabad.

Water, the limit on everything

Haryana irrigates nearly all of its cropped area, using two canal systems and a dense network of tube wells. The Western Yamuna Canal takes off at the Hathnikund barrage in Yamunanagar, a channel first dug in the medieval period and rebuilt by British engineers. The Bhakra canal system brings Sutlej water through the Narwana branch into the central districts. The Gurgaon canal from the Okhla barrage and the Jui and Loharu lift canals carry water into the dry south, and the Sutlej Yamuna Link canal remains unfinished and disputed. The cost of all this success is a water table falling year after year under the paddy belt, with waterlogging and salinity in parts of the south west, and stubble burning after the paddy harvest.

Livestock, dairy and research

Animal husbandry is as important as the plough here. The Murrah buffalo, the jet black breed of Rohtak, Jind and Hisar with its tightly curled horns, is the best milk buffalo in the country and is called the black gold of Haryana. The Hariana cattle breed, white or grey with a long narrow face, is a dual purpose animal of the Rohtak and Hisar tract. Nili Ravi buffaloes are kept near Sirsa and Beetal goats in the north. The cooperative milk brand of the state is Vita, and per capita milk availability in Haryana is among the highest in India.

The research map is easy to learn because it has two centres. Hisar has Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, one of the largest agricultural universities in Asia, together with the veterinary university and the Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes. Karnal has the National Dairy Research Institute, the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute and the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources. Among state schemes, Mera Pani Meri Virasat pays farmers to shift out of paddy and save groundwater, Bhavantar Bharpai Yojana covers the price gap for horticultural crops, farmers register their sowing on the Meri Fasal Mera Byora portal, and HAFED is the state cooperative that markets their produce.