The goal of my University education was to get into a medical college and equip myself to run a hospital in Kumbakonam left behind by my father, M.K. Sambasivan, who died at a young age in 1936.
— M. S. Swaminathan
Aberrations in monsoon behaviour are not uncommon, having been with us throughout our agricultural history.
Rain harvesting should be made mandatory and should be made more systematic to ensure that every drop of rain is preserved.
Hybrids have become an important method for improving productivity or yield in many crops including the self-pollinated crop like rice.
When politicians talk of loan waiver, they are accepting that agriculture is not economically viable. They are giving a wrong signal that farming is not economically viable. It’s true. That’s where the loan waiver comes in.
Agriculture involves crop husbandry, animal husbandry, forestry and fisheries. Your income will go up only if you look at the system, and not from one crop alone.
Leadership is something which other people have to recognize. You cannot demand that I am a leader.
My own motivation has come from the fact that all the indicators in the world, the hunger index or whatever index you say, shows a high prevalence of malnutrition.
The more powerful a technology greater care should be used to benefit fro it. India should not be left behind the world. From the past revolution of nuclear technology we saw how it could destruct and at the same time were useful for medical science.
We have to devise ways to lower the cost of production and reduce the risks involved in agriculture such as pests, pathogens, and weeds.
Famines were frequent in colonial India and some estimates indicate that 30 to 40 million died out of starvation in Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Bengal during the later half of the 19th century.
In India, unlike in the United States and Australia, agriculture is not just a food producing enterprise but also the backbone of the livelihood security of nearly 60 per cent of the population.
Waiver of farm loans is not an ideal solution. To ensure that the situation is not repeated, the government should focus on creating a robust system to extend the necessary ingredients of farming such as water harvesting systems, seed and fertiliser supplements.
In any case, if I grow hybrid maize or hybrid pearl mallet or any hybrid, I have to sow fresh seed every year. I cannot keep the seed of the same plant. If I keep the seed of the same plant, yield will be much less and there will be a wide variation in the field, like maturity period, quality and so on.
See, technology can advance yield and productivity, but only public policy can advance the income of farmers. There has to be a synergy between technology and public policy.
The government only gives subsidies for nitrogenous fertilisers. With the result, farmers do not apply balanced fertilisers.
You want to live in harmony with nature and with each other.
In Punjab wheat production it is a ‘gamble of temperature’ unlike other parts of the country where there is a ‘gamble of rainfall’.
After the Green Revolution, I came up with the concept of the Evergreen Revolution. In this we will see increase in farm productivity but without ecological harm.
There are two major challenges before Indian agriculture today: ecological and economical. The conservation of our basic agricultural assets such as land, water, and biodiversity is a major challenge. How to make agriculture sustainable is the challenge.
The rain-cum-solar energy centre functioning in Chennai is a source of credible public information on rainwater harvesting and solar energy use. Such centres need to be replicated in all our cities, towns and block headquarters.
In the current scenario of climate change, predictions of extreme weather events are becoming difficult.
You can classify farmers into two major groups. One who saves seeds for the next crop and the other who purchases seeds from the market. Most of the commercial farmers like the US farmers are people who purchase seeds.
The purpose of developing a methodology for what they call genetic control over seed, is mainly to ensure that F1 hybrids are pure and that every year you have to buy the seed.
To sum up, agriculture has made important progress and our farmers have now shown that they are second to none in terms of improving production and productivity.
I was chairman of the steering committee for agriculture when we set up the target of 4% growth rate. I had written that if you want to achieve 4% growth rate in agriculture, you should have 8% growth in animal husbandry and fisheries and 8% in horticulture.
Where there is a challenge there has to be a response.
Agriculture is the backbone of the livelihood security system of nearly 700 million people in the country and we need to build our food security on the foundation of home grown food.
All kinds of excuses have been given by governments for not implementing this recommendation like food price inflation. But the question is, do the farmers of this country, who constitute nearly half of the working population, also not need to eat?
The air pollution in Delhi has become a matter of public health concern nationally and internationally.
