Swaminathan's advice was not to turn Green Revolution into greed revolution

The scientist appealed farmers not to harm long-term production potential for short-term gains

M S Swaminathan, renowned agricultural scientist, development thinker and father of India’s Green Revolution, passed away on Thursday.

I knew him for four decades and it is difficult to cover all his achievements in this piece and I will mention only a few of them.

He is considered as the main architect of the Green Revolution for his leadership and role in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat. India became self-sufficient in rice and wheat due to the Revolution.

When American agronomist Dr Norman Borlaugh received the Nobel Prize in 1970, he wrote: “The Green Revolution has been a team effort and much of the credit for its spectacular development must go to Indian officials, organizations, scientists and farmers. However, to you Dr Swaminathan, a great deal of credit must go for recognizing the potential value of the Mexican dwarfs.

"Had this not occurred, it is quite possible that there would not have been a Green Revolution in Asia”.

As Swaminathan noted in one of his writings, the Green Revolution was possible because of the synergy between technology, public policy and farmers. Public policy, particularly in terms of providing remunerative prices and procurement mechanisms, was crucial for the success of the Revolution.

In other words, technology alone will not succeed unless it is accompanied by public policy in terms of remunerative prices and marketing. As early as 1968, Swaminathan appealed to farmers not to harm long-term production potential for short-term gains. He advised farmers to avoid the temptation to convert the Green Revolution into a greed revolution.

He later coined the word ‘ever-green revolution’, where technologies help farmers improve productivity without harming the ecology and the country achieves sustainability in agriculture.

Swaminathan was an institutional builder. He shaped the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and institutions abroad like the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). He established the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) at Chennai.

At MSSRF, he did a lot of work on hunger and malnutrition. According to Swaminathan, hunger has three major dimensions: The first one is calorie deprivation; protein hunger is the second due to inadequate consumption of pulses, milk, eggs, fish and meat, and the third is hidden hunger, caused by the deficiency of micronutrients such as iron, iodine, zinc, vitamin A and vitamin B12.

He advocated farming system research (FSR) – it involves crop-livestock-fish integration in research – to strengthen linkages between agriculture and nutrition.

Swaminathan, as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, introduced the Women Farmers’ Entitlements Bill in 2012 to strengthen the livelihood security of rural women.

The National Commission on Farmers, which Swaminathan chaired, recommended that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) should be at least 50 per cent more than the weighted average cost of production.

Swaminathan was a wonderful human being and down to earth person. I enjoyed a trip with him to Pakistan in 2014 when the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, gave him an honorary doctorate.

When I was chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, I discussed several times with him on the role of MSP. I learned a lot from his advice and his writings on agriculture and different subjects on development.

Swaminathan had a gift for explaining complex concepts in terms everyone can understand. His life and work inspire many people, including the youth. We will miss him.

S Mahendra Dev

The writer is a former director and vice chancellor of IGIDR, Mumbai.