Explained: The green revolution in maize

• The Green Revolution was largely about wheat and rice. India became self-sufficient, if not surplus, in these two cereal grains, thanks to high-yielding varieties bred under the leadership of scientists like Norman Borlaug and M S Swaminathan.

Key points

• There is, however, another less celebrated revolution that has taken place in India - in maize.
• Between 1999-2000 and 2023-24, its annual output has more than tripled, from 11.5 to over 35 million tonnes (mt), with average per-hectare yields also rising from 1.8 to 3.3 tonnes.
• Maize, unlike rice and wheat, isn’t much of a food grain. Hardly a fifth of India’s maize production is used for direct human consumption. An estimated 60% goes as feed for poultry birds and livestock. Such maize is indirectly consumed as food by households - in the form of chicken, egg or milk.

New breeding strategies

• The Green Revolution in wheat and rice was a result of farmers cultivating high-yielding varieties mostly bred by CIMMYT, IARI and other public sector research organisations.
• Being self-pollinating plants – their flowers contain both the male and female reproductive organs – these crops aren’t amenable to hybridisation.
• This is as against maize, whose cross-pollinating nature (the male and female parts are located in different areas of the plant) makes hybrid breeding commercially viable.
• Private sector-bred hybrids account for more than 80% of the 10 million hectares-plus area planted to maize in India. Their higher yields, from crossing two genetically dissimilar inbred plants, are limited to the first generation.
• Farmers cannot harvest the same yields if they save the grains from these and reuse as seed.
• In maize, CIMMYT is sharing its improved inbred lines with both public sector institutions and 25-odd private seed companies.
• The Green Revolution in maize has been, and continues to be, a private sector-led one.