MS Swaminathan — the Lord Krishna Indian agriculture lacks today

Subject: Geography

Section: Economic geography

Introduction:

American agronomist Norman Borlaug came to Delhi accompanied by M S Swaminathan and decided to send about 100 kg seeds each of four semi-dwarf wheat varieties he had bred at Mexico under a Rockefeller Foundation-funded programme — Sonora 63, Sonora 64, Mayo 64 and Lerma Rojo 64A — for testing under Indian conditions.
These varieties are less tall varieties with strong stems that responded to high-fertiliser doses and didn’t bend when their ears were heavy with well-filled grains.

Production of new crop varieties during Green Revolution:

In 1965-66 and 1966-67, India suffered back-to-back droughts. As foodgrain production fell to 72-74 million tonnes (mt), from the previous five years’ average of 83 mt, imports soared and touched 10.4 mt in 1966.
As the imported seeds (of Maxican varieties) got planted on a large scale, foodgrain output crossed 95 mt in 1967-68 and 108.5 mt by 1970-71.
Wheat production alone more than doubled from 11.4 mt to 23.8 mt between 1966-67 and 1970-71.
Now India has also developed its own hybrid wheat varieties viz. Kalyansona and Sonalika varieties.
- These produced amber-coloured grains with better chapati-making quality than the red kernels from the original Mexican varieties.
Other Wheat varieties: Arjun, HD 2285 and HD 2329
Rice varieties: IR 36 and IR64, Swarna and Samba Mahsuri.

M.S. Swaminathan:

As early as January 1968, he flagged the risks of pathogen and pest attacks from mono-cropping and unscientific tapping of underground water leading to the rapid exhaustion of this capital resource left to us through ages of natural farming.
The Green Revolution relied on breeding varieties enabling farmers to apply more nutrients and water.
This “more input, more output strategy” has yielded diminishing returns over time, apart from being environmentally and financially unsustainable.
Mr. Swaminathan would have focused on technologies for improved nutrient and water use efficiency (“less input, more output”) and breeding for climate change.
He would have championed cutting-edge agricultural biotechnology, gene modification and editing research with the same zeal as with the semi-dwarf wheat and rice varieties.

White revolution:

Operation Flood, launched on 13 January 1970, was the world’s largest dairy development program and a landmark project of India’s National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).
It transformed India from a milk-deficient nation into the world’s largest milk producer, surpassing the United States of America in 1998 with about 22.29 percent of global output in 2018.
Within 30 years, it doubled the milk available per person in India and made dairy farming India’s largest self-sustainable rural employment generator.
The program was launched to help farmers direct their own development, and to give them control of the resources they create. The program has since been termed the “White Revolution”.
Verghese Kurien is known as the father of the White Revolution.
He provided Amul with its technical backbone and invented the world’s first spray dryer (H M Dalaya) for making powder from buffalo milk.

Source: IE