Green Revolution transformed the face of agriculture and made it technology driven which helped the farmers to produce more than usual. They learned to use fertilizers, modern machines and most importantly the HYV seeds which yielded a lot more than their usual harvest.
Change in the System of Tenancy
The Green Revolution created lot of disparities among the different class of farmers. The large and medium farm holders could afford to buy all the modern machines, seeds etc to obtain a high yield which the small land farmers could not. The ‘progressive farmers’ utilized the opportunity fully and started perceiving agriculture as business and not a way to sustain lives. Soon they began to invest money into buying pumps and tube wells for their fields. They bought tractors and threshers as well which made production of crops easier . This changed the system of tenancy because for the owner of the farm it was expensive to retain tenants on the farm and pay 50% of the share. Rather it was wise to evict them and reappointed them as wage labors which was cheap for him. Therefore, the upper and the upper middle class of owners came into being.
Problem for Small Land Holders
The small land holders could not benefit in anyway because they were unable to utilize the condition and the facilities provided by the various markets and credit institutions since their risk taking capabilities are less than the large farm holders. Ideally all the classes of farmers should have benefited from the system but the intended was not achieved. The small holders could hardly use the modern machineries on their lands.
The Fate of the Tenants
Very few tenants received the opportunity to get settled with a better paying job and of a tube well or pump operator. This was more secured than the previous one. A major problem with the tenants was that they could not form a union to safeguard their rights which were violated by the owners. Green Revolution did not assure jobs for the evicted tenants. The agricultural system had become a capitalistic system where their rights could not be protected by anyone and they were exploited by the politically powerful landlords. The situation worsened for these tenants because in most of the cases they were not educated enough to fight for themselves. Basically green revolution created a gap between the poor and the rich farmers which overwhelmed the positive effects of the revolution.