By GEETA ANAND SOHIAN, India—India's Green Revolution is
withering. In the 1970s, India dramatically increased food
production, finally allowing this giant country to feed itself.
But government efforts to continue that miracle by encouraging
farmers to use fertilizers have backfired, forcing the country
to expand its reliance on imported food. India has been
providing farmers with heavily subsidized fertilizer for more
than three decades. The overuse of one type—urea—is so degrading
the soil that yields on some crops are falling and import levels
are rising. So are food prices, which jumped 19% last year. The
country now produces less rice per hectare than its far poorer
neighbors: Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Agriculture's
decline is emerging as one of the hottest political issues in
the world's biggest democracy. On Thursday, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh's cabinet announced that India would adopt a new
subsidy program in April, hoping to replenish the soil by giving
farmers incentives to use a bett