India, Jan. 22 -- In 1982, India organised the first Green Revolution, and Dr Madhav Gadgil was then a member of a Government of India committee to advise on legislation and other measures to promote environmental protection. On behalf of this committee, he had spent over a month talking to fishers, herders, peasants, and rural artisans about their perceptions of India's environmental problems in many different parts of the country.

One of the themes that recurred in these conversations was the perception, across the board, that the Green Revolution was depleting the fertility of India's agricultural soils. At a public meeting in Bangalore, presided over by a distinguished economist, who had served two terms in the Parliament and had bee...