EUGENIO VIASSA MONTEIRO
When considering the history of In dia’s independence from the colo nial yoke of the United Kingdom, many factors of violence stand out, includ ing the total disregard for the famine and epidemics suffered, without giving them the slightest response. According to economists, between 14 and 29 million people died in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Even more striking was Churchill’s attitude in 1943, when he was Prime Minister. After diverting food from India to Allied countries, notably Greece, he gave strict orders not to distribute food to the hungry and starving, as “it might be of need for the English”.
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It would have been possible to distribute it and quickly replen ish with the arrival of new harvests. The famines, the suffering, and the after effects are difficult to erase from the mem ory of those with future responsibilities for governing independent India. Eliminating any trace of hunger was a priority, still by importing the necessary provisions to avoid further suffering among the population. Therefore, in addition to seeking to in crease agricultural output by all means, India imported millions of tons of cereals each year, peaking at 9 million tons in 1969, when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister.
The West would have found an opportu nity to mock, “You want to be a superpower, but you can barely feed your population,” given their ill will, perhaps because India had moved closer to the Soviet Union and was not aligning with the West. At the same time, India tried to increase domestic food output by applying the les sons of the “Green Revolution,” developed in Mexico by Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He suggested using high-yield plant spe cies resistant to excess heat and water. A wide distribution of seeds of such selected varieties and an increase in irrigated areas, with adequate use of fertilisers, when pos sible, would be the solution. The outcomes came soon, and shortly after 1969, India no longer needed to import appreciable quan tities of food.
Cereal production followed a growing and very satisfactory trajectory, as in Table I: You can see that while the population multiplied by 3.5 times from 1960 to 2025, cereal’s production increased more than six-fold. As a result, from the 2020s on wards, India, in addition to feeding its en tire population and maintaining a safety stock, was able to export more than 23 mil lion tons per year. Milk production, which was in severe deficit under colonial rule, grew very rap idly, thanks to the Anand Dairy Cooperative model, the owner of the AMUL brand. Its Director, Eng. Verguese Kurien, was asked by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to lead the national body to replicate the Anand-type cooperative concept across the country. Thus, the NDDB (National Dairy Development Board) was incorporated in 1965. Both the cooperatives, with efficient op erations, and the private units that emerged in the meantime helped India become the world’s largest milk producer from 1997 onwards.
Today, the second-largest pro ducer, the USA, is far behind India. In 2025, India produced 248 MT (million tons), com pared to 104 MT by the USA. India has a solid dairy cooperative net work that, in 2025, comprised 22 dairy fed erations, 241 district cooperative unions, and 25 OPLs (Milk Producer Organisations). Cooperative structures connect dairy farm ers from approximately 235,000 villages, with 17.2 million members. Horticulture and fruits. Production grew rapidly, and exports became possible when there were requests from abroad. Many in cremental innovations have emerged, often aligned with the “green revolution,” by find ing more productive varieties or species that can adapt to different temperature condi tions than usual. Fruits total 115 million tonnes and vege tables around 220 million tons. India is the biggest producer of mangoes, producing about 50% of the total (25 million T.), and of bananas, with 36 MT, or 26% of world pro duction. Potato production has grown significant ly, with India now ranking as the 2nd-largest producer, yielding 60 million tons a year.
The Producers’ Association, in dialogue with retailers, must strongly boost sweet potato consumption. This crop offers significant nutritional benefits, including fibre, complex carbohydrates, and vitamins A and C. It is worth exploring how best to market it, given that after the monsoon season, rice fields can be planted with sweet potatoes, as is wide ly done in Goa, with good productivity. This will generate a second income stream for landowners and create additional employ ment, all while improving soil productivity by alternating crops. Other times, as with the Global Vikas Trust (GST), disruptive innovations on a large scale have been implemented to in crease landowners’ incomes through fruit tree plantations. An audit requested by TISS made it clear that those who aligned with the shift from traditional crops to fruit trees in creased their income per acre by more than 10 times. State agencies have also launched initi atives for olive cultivation in Rajasthan for olive oil production, with good results. In Gujarat, in the Ran of Kutch desert, 19,000 hectares were planted with date tree sap lings. There was a need to bring water for drip irrigation and increase landowners’ participation in the desert area. Therefore, date saplings, obtained through tissue cul ture, were sold to them at special discount prices…
India is the world’s second-largest fish producer. Total fish production reached 19.77 million metric tonnes, with inland fisheries—driven by aquaculture—account ing for 75%+ of the output. (Cf. Google.com). Consumption of eggs and meat stands for: annual egg production reaches 150 billion, while total meat production stood at 10.50 million tonnes, of which poultry/chicken meat accounts for 5.18 million tonnes. As noted, private and cooperative initia tives and State Agencies drove major leaps in production, creating an abundance of milk, vegetables, fruit, and fish, especially in aquaculture, meat, and eggs. We need to go further, more professionally and scientif ically. Nature is magnanimous, always going beyond the limits of our creativity. (Eugenio Viassa Monteiro is a Visiting Professor at Santelmo Business School (Seville and Malaga), Author of the books “The Rise of India” and “Inclusive Develop ment”.)
