Figure: Prof Prabhu Pingali

ICRISAT News

(Originally published in Asterisk Magazine) The Green Revolution saved a billion lives, but it left a legacy of homogenous diets and distorted agricultural markets. What impact has this had on global health — and how can we move forward?

Asterisk: You argue that the nutritional gains of the Green Revolution have been uneven. Although overall calorie consumption has increased in some areas, dietary diversity has decreased, and micronutrient deficiencies and stunting still remain common. Can you describe this process, using India as an example?

Prabhu: When the Green Revolution began, India was facing massive hunger and starvation. The focus of the Green Revolution was a major boost to the calorie supply, and the new varieties of rice and wheat helped to do that. But the government was focused on just these two crops. All the infrastructure that was built, the policy environment, and the incentives for farmers were focused on these crops only. That resulted in the crowding out of more traditional crops that are higher in nutrition, such as millets and pulses. 

As the hunger problem was solved, incomes started to rise through small-farm productivity growth. But then we also found that although the demand for dietary diversity was rising, the supply wasn’t keeping up for foods like fruits, vegetables, pulses, and livestock products. The policy environment still focused on the big staple crops.

But all this happened in the regions where the Green Revolution was successful and incomes were rising. With rising income, people could trade with other parts of the country where other foods were grown, bringing some of that diversity into local markets. But if you were in the regions that are much poorer — the Green Revolution did not take root as strongly in the eastern part of India, for example — you did not see either an increase in the demand for diversity or an increased supply of diversity to markets. Those are the places that ended up with very high levels of malnutrition and child stunting, which continue to be persistent.

See more: https://pressroom.icrisat.org/beyond-staple-grains