Green Revolution in India and Its Significance in Economic Development: Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa

In recent years India is experiencing a rapid economic growth, especially after the 1990s when India started to liberalize its economy in a full scale. However, the author emphasizes the critical importance of the preceded 1980s when Indian agricultural sector registered a high growth rate. The Green Revolution in India started in the late 1960s and with its success India attained food self-sufficiency within a decade. However, this first „wave‟ of the Green Revolution was largely confined in wheat crop and in northern India such as Punjab, resulting in a limited contribution to overall economic development of the country. On the contrary, the agricultural growth in the 1980s (the second „wave‟ of the Green Revolution) involved almost all the crops including rice and covered the whole country, it enabled to raise rural income and alleviate rural poverty substantially. Such a rise of rural India as a „market‟ for non-agricultural products and services was an important pre-requisite for the rapid economic growth based on non-agricultural sectors‟ development in India after the 1990s. The 1980s was a critical decade for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to make a great divergence in the economic development thereafter. The implication for Sub-Saharan Africa is that raising income in rural areas through productivity growth of the agricultural sector, especially the staple food sector, is essential for the success of modern economic growth through industrialization.