Born: 7th August 1925
Shri. Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan or M.S. Swaminathan was born on 7th August 1925, in Tamil Nadu. After completing his intermediate, he decided to enter the field of medicine and obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Zoology at Maharaja’s College, Trivandrum in Kerala. Eventually, he decided to switch his field to agriculture after witnessing Indians’ plight for food during the Great Bengal Famine (1943).
He joined Madras Agricultural College and obtained another graduate degree in Agricultural Science as he always wanted to make a difference. In 1947, for his Master’s he enrolled at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, and learned plant breeding and genetics. Later he became a UNESCO research fellow and worked on Potato Genetics at Wageningen Agricultural University, Institute of Genetics in the Netherlands. There he learned how to transfer genes from wild species of ‘Solanum’ and cultivated potato species ‘Solanum tuberosum’.In 1950, he completed his doctorate in Philosophy being a part of the Cambridge School of Agriculture. He also helped in setting up a USDA potato research station at the University of Wisconsin. Putting his learnings into practice he started teaching farmers to effectively increase the production of their yield in Indian and that with the help of high-yielding wheat varieties, advanced farming techniques, and fertilizers that reduce strain on farmers. Swaminathan in 1960, collaborated with Norman Borlaug and other scientists to develop High Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds of Wheat and encouraged the farmers of the nation to overcome the barriers of illiteracy and adopt it. Swaminathan in 1965, educated the small-scale farmers about how genetically modified grains can help grow better yields in the same fields by setting up thousands of demonstrations in the northern part of our country. The output of that was outstanding as in the first year, the harvest tripled previous production levels. Later he also collaborated with then Prime Minister, Smt Indira Gandhi so that agricultural policies and programs could be established that will help the nation to be self-sufficient in the agriculture field in the future. Swaminathan was the Director-General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (1972-1979). He also served as the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture (1979-1980). M.S. Swaminathan has also been considered as the “Father of Green Revolution in India”. He was honored with Padma Shri (1967), followed by Padma Bhushan (1972) and Padma Vibhushan(1989) for his efforts in solving hunger crises in India. He also served as the President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and was the recipient of the ‘World Food Prize’ in 1987.
