Father of India’s Green Revolution, MS Swaminathan, passes away
NEW DELHI: Renowned agricultural scientist and the father of India’s Green Revolution – MS Swaminathan – is no more.
Swaminathan - the driving force behind Green Revolution in India – passed away on Thursday (September 28).
He was 98 years old.
Swaminathan's work in the 1960s and 1970s revolutionised Indian agriculture.
His ground-breaking work helped India to avert widespread famine and achieve self-sufficiency in food production.
Swaminathan was instrumental in developing high-yielding varieties of paddy that helped ensure India’s low-income farmers produce more yield.
In 2004, Swaminathan was appointed as chair of the National Commission on Farmers, a commission setup to look into farmer distress amid alarming suicide cases.
His leadership as Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines was instrumental in his being awarded the first World Food Prize in 1987, recognized as the Nobel or the highest honours in the field of agriculture.
United Nations Environment Programme has called him 'the Father of Economic Ecology'.
