Agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathah, often called the architect of India’s green revolution, has helped to transform his native country from a net food importer to one that today exports and stores its surplus grain. In addition to shaping agricultural development in the Third World, Swaminathan has taken an active interest in rekited issues involving environmental conservation and women’s roles in effecting and adapting to technological change.
After receiving his Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1952, Swaminathan worked to develop and popularize high-yield strains of wheat and rice at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute. After serving as director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, he was India’s secretary of agriculture in 1979-80 and spent the next two years as a member of the Indian government’s Planning Commission. In 1982 he became director-general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos, Philippines, a world-renowned center established by the Ford and...
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