Dr. M.S. Swaminathan : Biography

Part-10.


Became Rice Research Institute Director : 3.


Meanwhile, Asian countries were exploding in population as medical care improved.

Western press accounts of the region's problems during the 1960s were filled with dire predictions of massive food shortages, and "starving children in India" became a reference point for American parents trying to cajole their own children into cleaning their plates.

The worst-case scenarios seemed to be coming true as 30 million people died in China during a period of crop failures lasting from 1958 to 1962.



The prediction of mass starvation in India never came to pass, however.

Within two years of the introduction of Swaminathan's Japanese-Mexican wheat hybrid, Indian wheat production rose from 10 million tons a year to 18 million tons.

By 2004 it stood at 80 million tons.




Scientists under Swaminathan's direction at the IARI made similar breakthroughs with rice.

U.S. scientist William Gaud coined the term "Green Revolution" to describe Swaminathan's breakthroughs, and Swaminathan concurred.

"It became a wheat revolution, not evolution," he told the Irish Times.


To be continued  ....