The sharp rise in Indian food-grain production from the mid-1960s, achieved through high-yielding-variety seeds, chemical fertilisers, assured irrigation, and modern inputs, which made India self-sufficient in cereals.
- Began in the mid-1960s in response to severe food shortages and dependence on food imports; associated with the agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan in India and Norman Borlaug internationally.
- Built on high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat and rice, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, assured irrigation, and farm mechanisation.
- Concentrated first in Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, mainly benefiting wheat, then rice; turned India from a food-deficit to a food-surplus country.
- Drawbacks: regional imbalance, widening gap between large and small farmers, depletion and contamination of groundwater, soil degradation, loss of crop diversity, and heavy fertiliser-pesticide use.
- Followed by talk of an "Evergreen Revolution" (Swaminathan) and a Second Green Revolution focused on eastern India and sustainable, climate-resilient farming.
The 1960s timing, the HYV-fertiliser-irrigation package, the Punjab-Haryana core, the wheat-then-rice focus, and the named scientists are recurring agriculture and economy facts.
Green Revolution is for food grains (mainly wheat and rice); the White Revolution is for milk, the Blue Revolution for fish, and the Yellow Revolution for oilseeds. Do not mix the colour-coded "revolutions".
Mid-1960s HYV-fertiliser-irrigation push, led by M S Swaminathan, that made India cereal self-sufficient, centred on Punjab-Haryana wheat.