Abstract
India continues to face a high burden of chronic diseases and persistent malnutrition, with the underlying
causes not fully understood. Nutritional imbalances could be significant contributors to this
challenge, potentially stemming from agricultural transformations that focus on maximizing caloric
production over nutritional adequacy. In this context, I examine the unanticipated effects of Green Revolution
technologies, particularly the introduction of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice and wheat
in 1966, on crop diversity, nutrition, and long-term health outcomes. I use a difference-in-differences
framework by leveraging time variation from the Green Revolution’s introduction and district-level
variation in potential productivity gains from transitioning to HYVs, based on climatic characteristics.
My findings show that districts with higher potential productivity gains for wheat and rice experienced
greater HYV adoption, reduced crop diversity, lower lentil and millet production, and decreased availability
of protein and micronutrients in the post-Green Revolution period. Individuals exposed to the
Green Revolution in early childhood tend to be shorter and have higher rates of metabolic syndrome.
These results suggest that early childhood nutritional declines can diminish the long-term health benefits
of concurrent income gains.