Agricultural Development Programme | High Yielding Varieties Programmes (HYVP) (1966)

  High Yielding Varieties Programmes (HYVP) (1966)

 The severe drought in 1965-66 resulted in steep decline in production of food grains. The Government of India (GOI) had to resort to import of cereals in much larger quantities than usual during the last several years. Fortunately, agricultural scientists in the world had been successful in evolving new varieties of seeds of some cereals, particularly in wheat, rice and maize.

 Through Dr. Norman Borloug, the country imported a number of high yielding wheat varieties 26from Mexico for experimentation. While, high yielding rice varieties were made available from International Rice Research Institute, The Philippines and Indian agricultural scientists evolved high yielding strains of maize, millets and sorghum.

HYVP was launched in 1965-66 with an objective/promote increasing cultivation of high yielding varieties (HYVs) which  helped the country in attaining self-sufficiency in food recorded higher yields.

 The technological development did not remain confined to the introduction of high yielding crop varieties alone. These were combined with the application of balanced fertilizers, irrigation, plant protection, farm implements etc. which made a ‘green revolution’ possible in the country . The pervasive influence of high yielding technology spread to other areas of farm production such as animal production,   fishery, sericulture, social forestry etc.

Punjab, Haryana and Western parts of Uttar Pradesh were initially selected for the phased launching of this strategy.  The cultivation of High yield variety since 1966-67 had resulted in a substantial increase in food grains production. 

 Wheat production was doubled.  Rice production also had a substantial increase, though not as much as in the case of wheat. The target of coverage of 2.5 crore hectares of area under High yielding varieties of cereals and millets under fourth five year plan was exceeded.  The coverage was more than four crore hectares.

However, the success were confined to irrigated areas and better off farmers. The regional imbalance and disparity were glaring.

Objectives :

i) To assess the spread of the various high yielding varieties in different parts of the country and also determine the extent of such spread;

ii) To ascertain the reactions, attitudes of cultivators/participating cultivators; and

iii) To study the problems of implementation of the programme at different level of administration such as States, district, block and village.

iv) Besides above, the study also covered certain other important and relevant aspects such as research efforts in evolving of new varieties.