The acceleration in the rate of growth of agriculture (from 0.25 per cent per annum over the fifties to 3.34 per cent per annum over the sixties, Table 4.1) ⁸ has come about primarily through the introduction of the new seed-fertilizer-water technology, which began to make some headway since the mid-sixties, but got wider acceptance in the seventies. Initially there had been an expansion of acreage, both by bringing new land under cultivation and by increasing the intensity of cultivation. But the technological transformation in the sense of increasing productivity came in the seventies when yield increase is found to contribute to about two-thirds of the total increase in output (Table 4.2). ⁹