Identify the correct statement about market-oriented cultivation in t…

The correct answer is Option (4) → Where a single crop is grown, a fall in prices can spell financial ruin

Option (1) Its crops were profitable mainly because they needed fewer costly inputs — Incorrect. Green Revolution farming in fact depended on costly inputs such as high-yielding seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. Its profits did not come from spending less on inputs.

Option (2) It shifted workers' wages from payment in cash to payment in grain — Incorrect. The shift ran the other way. Workers' wages moved from payment in kind (grain) to payment in cash, and this worsened their condition.

Option (3) Its gains went mostly to peasants practising subsistence agriculture — Incorrect. Peasants growing food for their own use were not the main gainers. Farmers who turned to the market faced more livelihood insecurity, and the gains went mostly to the richer farmers.

Option (4) Where a single crop is grown, a fall in prices can spell financial ruin — Correct. Market-oriented farming ties a farmer's income to market prices. Where only one crop is grown, a fall in prices or a bad crop can spell financial ruin.