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Irrigation, the Green Revolution and new directions

Agriculture of India · Part 4 / 4 · Fact-checked on 8 November 2026 · how we check

Written with AI from the sources listed at the bottom of this page, then fact-checked by a separate AI.

Canals, wells and tube wells, and tanks, and where each dominates; groundwater stress and the CGWB categories; drip, sprinklers and PMKSY; the Green Revolution, its package, its gains and its costs; dryland farming and watershed development; organic and natural farming.

Parts 1 to 3 showed how India uses its farmland and which crops grow where. This last part asks two further questions: how do farmers get water to their fields, and how did farming change after the 1960s? Indian rain arrives in a few monsoon months and swings from year to year, so a field that waits only for rain is always a gamble. It allows a second crop in the dry winter, raises cropping intensity and makes costly seed and fertiliser worth buying. That is why the Green Revolution began where water was assured. The story also has a cost side, in sinking water tables and worn-out soils, and a search for new directions: saving water, reviving dry land and farming with fewer chemicals.

Indian farmers draw water from four kinds of source. Canals lead river water away from a dam or barrage. Wells and tube wells pump up water stored underground. Tanks are small reservoirs, made by raising an earthen bank across a slope or a stream to hold monsoon run-off. The Ministry of Agriculture's land-use figures show that wells and tube wells together water more than half of the net irrigated area, with canals a distant second and tanks a small and shrinking share. groundwater won because the farmer controls it: a pump can be switched on the very day a crop needs water, whereas canal water comes by a fixed turn and often runs short at the tail end of the network. Cheap or free electricity for farm pumps in many states made pumping cheaper still.

Which source leads in a region depends on its relief, its rock and its rivers. Canals lead in the flat northern plains fed by Himalayan rivers, in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and in the east-coast deltas of the Godavari, the Krishna and the Kaveri. Tube wells lead across the alluvial plains of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, because deep beds of sand and silt hold plenty of water that is easy to bore into. Tanks belong to the southern plateau, in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. There the hard crystalline rock stores little water below ground, most streams dry up after the rains and the rolling land makes it easy to bank up small valleys. Across the country, roughly half of the net sown area is irrigated.

The spread of tube wells has a price: in many districts more water is pumped out each year than the rain puts back. The Central Ground Water Board, working with the states, rates every assessment unit by its stage of extraction, meaning the share of the yearly extractable recharge that is actually drawn out. A unit counts as safe up to 70 percent, semi-critical from 70 to 90, critical from 90 to 100 and over-exploited above 100 percent. Critical and over-exploited units are concentrated in the rice and wheat lands of Punjab and Haryana, in Rajasthan and Delhi, and in hard-rock parts of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Canal areas can suffer the opposite fault. Heavy watering with poor drainage lifts the water table, leaving fields waterlogged and crusted with the salts of saline and alkaline soil, as in parts of the Indira Gandhi Canal command in Rajasthan.

One response is to make each drop go further. In micro-irrigation, water reaches the plant through pipes instead of flooding the whole field. Drip irrigation lets water fall slowly at the root through small emitters, and suits widely spaced crops such as fruit trees, vegetables, cotton and sugarcane; fertiliser can be dissolved in the same water, a practice called fertigation. Sprinklers spray water over the crop like light rain and suit close-growing crops on sandy or uneven ground, where flooding a field wastes water. Both save water and labour but cost money up front, so governments subsidise them. The Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY), approved in 2015, brought the irrigation schemes together under two slogans, 'Har Khet Ko Pani' (water to every field) and 'Per Drop More Crop'. Per Drop More Crop is its micro-irrigation part.

In the mid-1960s India was importing large amounts of wheat, much of it from the United States, and the droughts of 1965 and 1966 made the shortage acute. The answer was a package. At its centre was high-yielding variety (HYV) seed: short-stemmed (dwarf) wheat that grew out of Norman Borlaug's breeding work in Mexico, and later rice such as IR8 from the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. These plants give their big harvests only with heavy doses of chemical fertiliser, timely and assured water, and pesticides. Indian scientists led by M. S. Swaminathan tested and adapted the seeds, and the government added cheap credit, guaranteed prices and public purchase; the Agricultural Prices Commission and the Food Corporation of India were both set up in 1965. In 1968 the American official William Gaud gave the change the name Green Revolution. Because the package depended on water, it took root first in the irrigated wheat lands of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh; rice followed later.

The gains were large. Wheat output climbed steeply within a few years, by the early 1970s India no longer relied on food aid, and the government could build up grain stocks that later backed the public distribution system. Yet the benefits were uneven in three ways. Between regions, the irrigated north-west raced ahead while rain-fed central India, the dry peninsula and the eastern states with poor water control gained far less. Between crops, wheat and rice received most of the research, price support and procurement, while pulses, oilseeds and millets lagged. Between farmers, those with land, wells and access to credit adopted the package first. To carry the gains eastward, the Centre started Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India in 2010–11, aimed at the rice lands of states such as Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam and eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Half a century on, the costs are plainest where the change began. Two thirsty cereals, paddy in summer and wheat in winter, follow each other on the same fields year after year, so groundwater sinks and soils lose organic matter. Fertiliser use is lopsided: nitrogen from urea, the most heavily subsidised and so the cheapest, is applied far more than phosphorus and potash, against a balance usually given as 4:2:1 for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, and shortages of micronutrients such as zinc have spread. After combine harvesters cut the paddy, the short gap before wheat sowing leads many farmers to burn the loose straw in October and November, adding to the winter smog over Delhi and the northern plains. The responses include coating all urea with neem oil from 2015 to curb its misuse, soil health cards, machines that sow wheat straight into the paddy stubble, and incentives to move part of the paddy land to other crops.

About half of India's farmland has no irrigation and lives by the monsoon. These rain-fed lands grow most of the country's pulses, millets and oilseeds and much of its cotton. Geographers often separate dryland farming, practised where yearly rain is below about 75 cm and the whole aim is to hold on to soil moisture, from rain-fed farming in wetter areas where the rain is usually enough. The main tool for such land is the watershed, the entire area that drains to one stream or outlet. watershed development treats that area as a unit, from the ridge down to the valley: contour bunds and trenches on the slopes, check dams across the streams, farm ponds, trees on bare land, and mulching and hardy crops in the fields, so that rain soaks in instead of rushing off with the topsoil. The Integrated Watershed Management Programme of 2009–10 now runs as the watershed component of PMKSY under the Department of Land Resources.

A further direction is to farm with fewer chemicals. organic farming does without synthetic fertilisers and pesticides and keeps the soil fertile with compost, green manure, crop rotation and biological pest control; inputs may be bought from outside the farm so long as they come from natural sources. Produce can be sold as organic only after certification. The National Programme for Organic Production (2001), run through APEDA, covers exports, and a cheaper group-based Participatory Guarantee System serves buyers at home. The Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (2015) helps farmers who convert together in clusters. Sikkim was declared India's first fully organic state in January 2016, after phasing out chemical fertilisers and pesticides over more than a decade. Yields often fall in the first years after conversion.

natural farming goes a step further and buys almost nothing from outside. Farmers prepare their own inputs from cow dung and urine, jaggery, pulse flour and a handful of soil, such as jeevamrit to feed the soil's microbes and beejamrit to treat seed; they keep the ground covered with mulch and grow several crops together on the same plot. The approach was popularised in India by Subhash Palekar as 'zero budget natural farming', and Andhra Pradesh has run the largest state programme. On 25 November 2024 the Union Cabinet approved a separate National Mission on Natural Farming with an outlay of Rs 2,481 crore, meant to reach about one crore farmers through clusters and village bio-input resource centres. The difference to keep clear is simple: organic farming may use bought organic inputs and is certified, whereas natural farming depends on inputs made on the farm itself.

Taken together, the four parts tell a single story. Land and seasons, from Part 1, decide what can be grown; the crops of Parts 2 and 3 show where; and water and technology, the subject of this part, largely decide how much. Irrigation, above all from groundwater, made the Green Revolution possible and turned India from a country waiting for food ships into one with large grain stocks and rice to export. The same model has left the north-west short of water and its soils overworked, while the rain-fed half of the country gained the least. The newer directions, saving water through drip and sprinklers, healing dry land through watersheds, and cutting chemicals through organic and natural farming, try to keep the gains while repairing the damage.

Exam traps

• WELLS AND TUBE WELLS together are the largest source of irrigation, not canals; canals come second and tanks are a small share.
• TANKS are typical of the hard-rock SOUTHERN PLATEAU (Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka), not of the alluvial northern plains, where tube wells and canals lead.
• CGWB categories go by stage of extraction: safe up to 70%, semi-critical 70–90%, critical 90–100%, OVER-EXPLOITED above 100%. Over-exploited does not mean 'dry'; it means more is drawn than is recharged.
• Canal irrigation can RAISE the water table and cause waterlogging and salinity; it is tube wells that LOWER it.
• The Green Revolution began with WHEAT in the irrigated north-west in the mid-1960s; rice followed later. Pulses, oilseeds and millets were largely left out.
• The HYV package worked only WITH assured irrigation, chemical fertiliser and pesticides; the seed alone was not enough. The term 'Green Revolution' was coined by William Gaud in 1968.
• ORGANIC farming may use bought organic inputs and needs certification; NATURAL farming relies on inputs made on the farm (jeevamrit, beejamrit). Sikkim (January 2016) is the first fully ORGANIC state.
• PMKSY (2015) has the slogans 'Har Khet Ko Pani' and 'Per Drop More Crop'; Per Drop More Crop is its MICRO-IRRIGATION part, and watershed development is a separate component under the Department of Land Resources.

Recap

• Sources of irrigation: canals, wells and tube wells, tanks and others; wells and tube wells together water more than half of the net irrigated area.
• Groundwater leads because the farmer controls the timing; canal water comes by turns and runs short at the tail end; cheap farm power helped.
• Canals lead in the northern plains and east-coast deltas, tube wells in the alluvial north-west, tanks on the hard-rock southern plateau; roughly half the net sown area is irrigated.
• CGWB stages of extraction: safe ≤70%, semi-critical 70–90%, critical 90–100%, over-exploited >100%; stress is worst in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi and hard-rock south.
• Drip suits widely spaced crops and allows fertigation; sprinklers suit sandy or uneven land; PMKSY (2015): Har Khet Ko Pani, Per Drop More Crop.
• Green Revolution: HYV seed (Borlaug's dwarf wheat, IRRI's IR8 rice) plus fertiliser, water and pesticides, backed by the APC and FCI (1965); named by William Gaud in 1968.
• Gains: food self-sufficiency and grain stocks; imbalances by region, crop and farmer; BGREI (2010–11) for the eastern rice lands.
• Costs: falling water tables, lopsided fertiliser use against the 4:2:1 NPK norm, zinc deficiency, stubble burning; responses include neem-coated urea (2015) and crop diversification.
• Dryland farming (below about 75 cm of rain) and watershed development from ridge to valley; IWMP (2009–10) now the watershed component of PMKSY.
• Organic farming (certified; NPOP 2001, PGS, PKVY 2015; Sikkim fully organic in January 2016) versus natural farming (farm-made inputs; National Mission approved 25 November 2024).

Practice questions

Sources

• Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare: Land Use Statistics at a Glance (net irrigated area by source); Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (Per Drop More Crop) guidelines; Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana; National Mission on Natural Farming — https://agriwelfare.gov.in
• Central Ground Water Board, Ministry of Jal Shakti: National Compilation on Dynamic Ground Water Resources of India (categorisation of assessment units) — https://cgwb.gov.in
• Indian Council of Agricultural Research: history of high-yielding varieties; Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture on rain-fed farming and moisture conservation — https://icar.org.in
• Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development: Integrated Watershed Management Programme and the Watershed Development Component of PMKSY — https://dolr.gov.in
• Press Information Bureau: Cabinet approval of PMKSY (2015) and of the National Mission on Natural Farming (25 November 2024); 100 per cent neem-coated urea (2015); Sikkim declared a fully organic state (January 2016) — https://pib.gov.in
• APEDA, Ministry of Commerce and Industry: National Programme for Organic Production (2001) — https://apeda.gov.in