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non-agricultural products and services as an important pre-requisite for the success of industrialization. By agricultural development through productivity growth such as the Green Revolution, rural income can be raised and rural poverty be alleviated. Therefore the Green Revolution can contribute to the overall economic development through creating a market in rural areas for non-agricultural products and services.
In the case of India, the Green Revolution at first started in the late 1960s. With the success of it, India attained food self-sufficiency within a decade by the end of the 1970s( the first „ wave ‟ of the Green Revolution). However, because it confined only to wheat crop and in northern India such as Punjab, it failed to raise income in the vast rural areas of the country. The second „ wave ‟ of the Green Revolution, however, reached India finally in the 1980s. Since it involved almost all the crops including rice( which is a very important staple food in eastern and southern India) and it covered the whole country, it was able to contribute to raise rural income and alleviate rural poverty in the whole country. Thus the second Green Revolution in the 1980s was essential for the history of Indian economic development.
This paper composes as followings. In the section I, we will reflect the process of the agricultural development in India after its independence in 1947. In particular, the process of the first and the second waves of the Green Revolution and their impacts will be delineated in detail. In the section II, the role of the Green Revolution in India on its history of economic development will be presented. In the section III, the implications of the Indian experience for the contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa will be discussed, taking into consideration the similarities and differences between the two regions. Finally, we will summarize the argument and conclude.
I.
The Green Revolutions in India
Before focusing on the agricultural sector development in India, let us first look at briefly the overall economic development process of the country since independence in 1947 until the present day. Figure 1 illustrates the economic growth rates( three-year moving averages) of India in order to eliminate year to year fluctuations.
It is found from the figure that India suffered a relatively low economic growth rates around 3.5 percent per annum until the late 1970s, with a large fluctuations due to the influence of the agricultural sector growth which largely depended on the monsoon situation. Indian economy then experienced some improvement in the 1980s because of the government ‟ s liberalization policies( but not in a full-scale) under the Rajiv Gandhi regime and a relatively high growth rate attained by the agricultural sector in the decade. And finally, after the full-scale economic liberalization in 1991 the economic growth rates in India accelerated to a very high level( usually more than 6 percent, and