2X Thank You, Dr MS Swaminathan, For Being The Father Of India’s Green Revolution And The World’s Evergreen Revolution!

I first blogged about Dr MS Swaminathan 11 years ago (“2^ndGreen Revolution (0). From Pessimism To Possibility To Prosperity!” (30 June 2011, Creative Thinkering, blogspot.com). The “2^nd Green Revolution” was/is the “Evergreen Revolution,” Mr Swaminathan’s brilliant brainchild. And then I forgot about it/him – that was because I myself was not paying much attention to Climate Change. Now I say, “Now is the time for Primate Change for Climate Change! And we need to wage the Evergreen Revolution.”

(“MS Swaminathan” from leverageedu.com)

ANN says (Author Not Named, “Evergreen Revolution In India” (JournalsOfIndia, journalsofindia.com):

[The] evergreen revolution refers to productivity improvement in perpetuity without ecological and social harm.

Mr Swaminathan himself wrote (01 Sept 2006, “An Evergreen Revolution” (Wiley Online Library, acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com), about the Green Revolution:

Environmentalists emphasized that the excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides, as well as the monoculture of a few crop cultivars… create serious environmental problems, including the breakdown of resistance and the degradation of soil fertility.

This is what I wrote in 2011 (30 June 2011, “2nd Green Revolution (0). From Pessimism to Possibility to Prosperity!” Alternative Journalism, blogspot.com):

40 years ago, the Green Revolution led by Norman Borlaug was a smash success in doubling yields, trebling incomes, and quadrupling hopes – but not in helping the poor farmers rise from poverty. It was not in the design.

It is not a simple proposition, ICRISAT Director General William Dar said:

The goal for the agricultural sector is no longer simply to maximize productivity but to optimize it as a business proposition across a far more complex landscape of production, rural development, environmental, social justice and food consumption outcomes.

I said:

Dar was saying the next Green Revolution must be beyond higher yields. For the farmers, it must now become a business, considering costs and returns not only to the farming family but also to other families in the village and beyond, the returns not only food and monetary but also environmental and social. Farming cannot be sustainable if the poor farmers remain poor, if the soil is abused, if the environment is degraded, if farmers don't get the benefits that they deserve because the market system denies them.

I say organic farming is the single most practical way of waging the Evergreen Revolution. Instapediasays (insightsonindia.com, also source of bottom image):

[Organic farming] is a method of farming which is primarily aimed at cultivating the land and raising crops in such a way as to keep the soil alive and in good health by use of organic wastes (crop, animal and farm wastes, aquatic wastes) and other biological materials along with beneficial microbes (bio fertilizers) to release nutrients to crops for increased sustainable production in an ecofriendly, pollution-free environment.

Organic farming is Regenerative Agriculture. It renews the soil’s natural fertility, which then requires no fertilizers, which then grows healthy crops, which then require no pesticides, which then produce healthy harvests, which then naturally enrich the farmer…

The best is yet to come with organic farming!@517