Looking Back at Independent India’s First Agriculture Reform – Expectations, Promises and Unintended Consequences.

The three farm bills recently passed by the Parliament have triggered massive protests by farmers and opposition parties on one hand. On the other, the passage of these bills is celebrated as the ‘watershed moment’ for agriculture sector. Without taking a systems approach to policy design, and with limitations of reliable research data, policies can lead to massive market distortions and irreparable unintended consequences. I look at independent India’s first agriculture reform - Green Revolution. It was designed to addressing the market failure of food grains production and reduce poverty. While it did address the issue of food grain production, it distorted the entire agriculture and economic system and widened economic inequality.