Green Revolution in Middle Phase

the changes in their work status that accompanied changes in technology and production organisation. A general finding of Isa Baud's study is that women's THIS empirical study on the impact of the Green Revolution on production efficiency by size, income distribution and poverty is based on a large-scale survey of a cross-section of cultivating households in the state of Haryana in 1975-76. By the middle 1970s, Haryana had made mqch progress in the rate of adoption of H Y V technology. In terms of numbers, 56 per cent of cultivators had adopted HYV, and in terms of area the coverage was 44 per cent. Considering wheat, almost two- thirds of the area was under HYV. This was made possible by the considerable progress in infrastructure, viz, electricity, tubcwell irrigation, etc. Thanks to the development of infrastructure and access to it of even small farmers, differences in the rate of adoption between large and small farmers got reduced, and the intensity of adoption by the small was higher. In order to appreciate the findings of the study, it is important to recognise the particular phase of HYV development in which the large farmers lost their decisive advantage over small farmers. The findings on income distribution effects by Ladejinsky, Wharton and Francine Frankel related, by contrast, to the late 1960s, when infrastructure progress was still limited and large farmers dominated the scene. (G Parthasarathy, 'HYV Technology: The Polarisation and Im- miserisation Controversy', Economic and Political Weekly, June 29, 1991.) A major merit of this work is the lucid description of the research procedures before presentation of the results of the survey. The chapter on 'Data Base, Concepts and Methodology' contains a good description of the methodological base of the survey. The description of procedures followed in agricultural regionalisation of Haryana and of the use of principal component analysis will be found to be particularly helpful by young researchers. In the chapter on Adoption of New Technology', there is a good description of the models chosen for analysing the factors influencing the intensity of adoption. Similarly, the description of alternative methods of measuring production access to jobs is higher where the scale of production is low. A higher proportion of women workers than of men workers are casual labourers and women workers obtain less regular employment than men.