A Paradigm Shift in Indian Agricultural Policy and Food Security: Reducing the Rice–Wheat Hyphenation

Today, India is known throughout the world as an agricultural country. The Green Revolution began in India in the 1960s, especially during the period 1965-1968, in which food grain production was greatly increased by using modern technology, high-yielding seeds (HYV), chemical fertilizers and irrigation, which led to a major leap in India towards food security. The father of the Green Revolution at the global level is Norman Borlaug, while Dr. M. S. Swaminathan is considered the father of the Green Revolution in India, who made India self-sufficient in food grains through the use of high-yielding seeds and modern technology. In Maharashtra, former Chief Minister Vasantrao Naik is considered the pioneer of the Green Revolution. The post-Green Revolution food system is structurally linked to the rice-wheat cropping system that provides caloric security but generates increasing environmental, economic and nutritional costs. This paper synthesizes recent empirical evidence and policy developments to suggest that meaningful improvements in India’s long-term food security require a deliberate de-hyphenation of rice and wheat – that is, reducing policy, market, and institutional incentives that lock regions into the rice-wheat treadmill – and replacing them with diverse, climate-resilient cropping systems (cereals, oilseeds, coarse grains, horticulture, fodder, and integrated farming). We review the factors sustaining the rice-wheat complex (prices, procurement, irrigation, input subsidies), examine the agronomic and socio-economic constraints to diversification, analyze recent state and central initiatives, and propose a coherent policy package (market reforms, targeted incentives, public goods investments, risk management, and extension reforms) to accelerate the transition while protecting smallholder farmers’ incomes and national food security.