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India's northwestern states were going through a rough patch after dealing with the Bengal famine and periodic droughts. India's leader M. S Swaminathan created what was called a 5 year plan, which aimed to remove the hunger crisis, and to modernize India's agriculture. With the improvement of fertilizers and irrigation the 5 year plan made drastic changes for the citizens bettering their food sources preventing death.
Hand dusters in India, 1967-68, Rockefeller Archive Center
"It is a well-known fact that in 1943, India suffered from the world’s worst food crisis, “The Bengal Famine”, which caused the death of approximately 4 million people in east India due to hunger… until the year of 1967, the government largely concentrated on expanding the farming areas”(“The Green Revolution: Transforming Agriculture in India”).
Hand dusters in India, 1967-68, Rockefeller Archive Center
“The green revolution’s primary aim was to introduce high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of cereals to alleviate poverty and malnutrition (Nelson et a., 2019). Not to deny, the green revolution was capable of mitigating hunger and malnutrition in the short term as well (Cavis et al., 2019).”
Before the Green Revolution India was rationing their food because of how bad their food production was. With droughts and diseases it really took a toll on India's food sources; but with the help of the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico and their imported seeds it helped India make hybrids. With those hybrids India was able to produce high-yielding varieties of cereals.
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