Father of Indian green revolution deserves Bharat Ratna
In the demise of Dr M S Swaminathan, the nation lost its tallest agricultural scientist, an icon and a visionary who helped put food on the plates of the poorest of the poor. His pathbreaking interventions helped change India’s trajectory from famine and hunger in the 1960s to food security.
Celebrated as the father of the Indian Green Revolution, he was very much alive to its downside but initially prioritised enhancing farm yield to address the most pressing problem of the day. When the Green Revolution started rolling, he was concerned about the swamping out of native crop lines as high yield came from imported dwarf seed varieties that were genetically tweaked and crossed with local ones.
The indiscriminate use of fertilisers and herbicides to enhance yield was another worry as it ended up making the soil toxic. To enhance soil health, he floated the concept of an Evergreen Revolution in 1990 for productivity in perpetuity without the associated ecological harm.
Swaminathan’s ideas were far ahead of his times. He conceived the proposal of issuing soil health cards to farmers in 2008 as part of the Kuttanad wetland development project in Kerala. That idea was picked up by the Modi government, branded as the Central Soil Health Card Scheme and implemented across the country with much fanfare. Decades ago, Swaminathan coined the term nutri-cereals for the millet family to promote nutrition security, which today is among the Centre’s flagship programmes.
He was a motivational leader who had the ability to transfer research work from the lab to the field seamlessly. In the process, he inspired generations of scientists to take up that journey. He got to work with all prime ministers and was part of every national food security initiative.
The National Commission on Farmers under his chairmanship evolved a formula for fixing the minimum support prices for farm produce—at least a half more than the weighted average cost of producing crops. That is the current government’s minimum support price benchmark, though there is divergence on its interpretation.
His was a life well lived. From collaborating with international scientists like Norman Borlaug in cutting-edge research and helping design agricultural policies that had relevance beyond India, he was a global leader in the field of sustainable agriculture. Swaminathan was honoured with various awards during his lifetime, including the World Food Prize. But he certainly deserves India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, at least posthumously.