Bücher der Reihe M.s. Swaminathan: The Quest For A World Without Hunger

The green revolution in India about 50 years ago transformed India''s image then as begging bowl to bread basket. This transformation during the 1960s took just about 4 years. The yield increases achieved in wheat and then in rice which occurred in just about half decade is far in excess of the yield increases during the preceding 4000 years. This remarkable feat was achieved with the leadership of the author using the dwarf wheat types which had been produced by Norman Borlaug in Mexico.The research and development of green revolution of wheat and rice at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi was led by the author along with his team of students and co-workers. He has published over 100 papers on green revolution and the ever-green revolution which is a refinement of the former. This book is a compilation of just about 40 of his numerous research papers, monographs and books published by him on this subject.The papers in this book bring out the scientific basis of the modification of the plant type so as to be responsive to exogenous addition of chemical fertilizers and irrigation. The ideal plant type enables capture of adequate sunlight and using the chemical fertilizers added to the soil, produce substantial photosynthetic starch. And because the plants have short and thick culm, they are able to withstand enormous amounts of grains in their ears. This indeed was the basis of breaking the yield barriers associated with native varieties. The book also brings out that green revolution had established the food security at the national level but not at the individual household levels of millions of resource-poor rural small and marginal farming, fishing and landless families. Further green revolution was commodity-centric and the manner of its practice led to environmental degradation and social inequities. This author realized as early as 1972 that system of agriculture in India should be designed to fight both the famines of food and rural livelihoods. In pursuit of it, this author further designed an evergreen revolution with systems approach. What this means is providing concurrent attention to ecological foundations of agriculture and the livelihoods of the rural people.The book also brings out that green revolution was a team effort involving scientists, policy makers, administrators, farmers and students.This book is an outstanding example of green revolution providing a breathing space by putting the cereal grain production rate ahead of the population growth rate and then when food security has been adequately established, the system is changed to achieve productivity in perpetuity without causing environmental and social harm.

This unique volume is not just an in-depth analysis of Professor Swaminathan''s brilliant contributions to basic cytogenetics, radiation biology, mutagenesis and genomic affinities of cultivated potato and its wild derivatives, but also the application of the new knowledge gained to improve the productivity of agricultural crops, as also to enhance their resistance to a variety of biotic and abiotic stresses. No other earlier biographies of Professor Swaminathan bring out these salient dimensions of his scientific achievements made at the Wageningen University, The Netherlands, Cambridge University, UK, and Wisconsin University, USA as well as Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. This biography is also unique for its revelation that Professor Swaminathan''s contributions par excellence have been in contemporary areas of crop improvement for productivity and resistance to pests and diseases.This volume is also unique in bringing out that Professor Swaminathan, Father of India''s Green Revolution, wanted to use this chemically intensified system only to gain ''breathing space'' and went on to propose a ''systems approach'' ΓÇö based evergreen revolution in order to ''achieve productivity in perpetuity'' through various pathways of ecoagriculture, and also integrated it with avenues for on-farm and non-farm livelihoods. Towards this goal, he made innovative uses of ecotechnologies in a ''biovillage'' paradigm and modern information and communication technology (ICT) in Village Knowledge Centres (VKCs) to provide skill and knowledge empowerment respectively of the resource-poor rural women and men towards sustainable management of the natural resources for creating income-generating on-farm and non-farm livelihoods. This volume also brings out how Professor Swaminathan elegantly combined intellect and labour (hard work), and professional zeal with compassion for the poor. He is always open to new ideas, and new technologies without of course, compromising the values of traditional knowledge and ecological prudence of the rural and tribal people. This volume nicely captures how Professor Swaminathan with a deep and comprehensive understanding of the threats to the ecological foundations of agriculture and sustainable rural development, environmental degradation, social inequities and the climate change risks, has also harnessed science and technology to convert challenges into opportunities. This volume is written in a manner to serve also as a text book, going beyond the scope of just a biography. That should benefit generations of students on one hand, and sustain an interest in the book for many years on the other.