"The guarantee given by the government to buy the produce of the farmers at a given price" was the beginning of:

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct option is 3:
The core concept described—"The guarantee given by the government to buy the produce of the farmers at a given price"—is fundamentally linked to the policies implemented during the **Green Revolution** in India. The Green Revolution, which began in the mid-1960s, was an intensive program to increase agricultural production, primarily of wheat and rice, by adopting high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, increased use of fertilizers, and modern irrigation techniques. However, for farmers to invest heavily in these costly inputs (seeds, water, pesticides), they needed assurance that their dramatically increased output would be purchased at a remunerative price, protecting them from market price crashes caused by surplus production. To provide this crucial market stability and incentive, the Indian government institutionalized the policy of **Minimum Support Price (MSP)**. MSP is the pre-announced, assured price at which the government procurement agencies, like the Food Corporation of India (FCI), would purchase crops from farmers, ensuring that the farmer's market risk was minimized. This system of guaranteed procurement was the critical non-technological policy that underpinned the success and scale of the Green Revolution, making Option 3 the correct response as it describes the central governmental assurance that enabled the movement.

The incorrect option is 1:
Gram Vikas Yojana is an incorrect option because, while it relates to rural India, it is a much broader and more general term for schemes aimed at overall village development, covering infrastructure, social welfare, and various poverty alleviation measures. These programs generally focus on holistic rural upliftment rather than specifically targeting agricultural price assurance or procurement mechanisms for farm produce. The guarantee of buying produce at a fixed price is an agricultural market intervention tool, which is too specific and foundational to the Green Revolution to be classified merely as a general "Gram Vikas Yojana" (Village Development Scheme).

The incorrect option is 2:
Krishak Kalyan Karyakram (Programme) translates to a Farmer Welfare Program. Although government support prices and procurement certainly contribute to farmer welfare, this is a descriptive, contemporary term and not the specific historical context in which the assured price guarantee *began* as a major, transformative policy. Guaranteed procurement through MSP was instituted specifically to support the risks associated with the high-cost, high-yield technology of the Green Revolution era in the 1960s, predating the widespread use of the general term "Krishak Kalyan Karyakram" to describe such a fundamental beginning.

The incorrect option is 4:
Antyodaya Yojana is incorrect as it refers to a specific type of poverty alleviation scheme, typically aimed at assisting the 'poorest of the poor' families by providing subsidized food grains or other targeted benefits. For instance, the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) focuses on food security for the most marginalized households. This program deals with the *distribution* and *consumption* side of agricultural produce (food security) and is not the policy framework that initiated the guarantee for the *procurement* and *production* of farm output at assured prices.