General Agriculture By Jain Brothers Pdf
Giuseppina Worster
This book covers comprehensively the content of all syllabus of general agriculture for M.Sc. and Ph.D. enterance examinations of Agriculture Universities. It is competitive book for I.C.A.R , J.R.F , Ph.D , S.R.F and A.R.S examination with more than 3800 questions solved. It provides the students with the wide range of contents, frequently asked questions in question and answer form rather than M.C.Q so that the students can have a better understanding of the questions with various terms definied at the end of this book.Along with this it also contains selected questions of previous year question paper of all those competitive exams mentioned above.
Swaminathan's collaborative scientific efforts with Norman Borlaug, spearheading a mass movement with farmers and other scientists and backed by public policies, saved India and Pakistan from certain famine-like conditions in the 1960s.[7][8] His leadership as director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines was instrumental in his being awarded the first World Food Prize in 1987, recognized as one of the highest honours in the field of agriculture.[9] The United Nations Environment Programme has called him "the Father of Economic Ecology".[10]He was recently conferred the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of the Republic of India, in 2024.
Swaminathan contributed basic research related to potato, wheat, and rice, in areas such as cytogenetics, ionizing radiation, and radiosensitivity.[11] He was a president of the Pugwash Conferences and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.[12][13] In 1999, he was one of three Indians, along with Gandhi and Tagore, on Time's list of the 20 most influential Asian people of the 20th century.[5] Swaminathan received numerous awards and honours, including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, and the Albert Einstein World Science Award.[10] Swaminathan chaired the National Commission on Farmers in 2004, which recommended far-reaching ways to improve India's farming system.[14] He was the founder of an eponymous research foundation.[5] He coined the term "Evergreen Revolution" in 1990 to describe his vision of "productivity in perpetuity without associated ecological harm".[2][15] He was nominated to the Parliament of India for one term between 2007 and 2013.[16] During his tenure he put forward a bill for the recognition of women farmers in India.[17]
Swaminathan was educated at a local high school and later at the Catholic Little Flower High School in Kumbakonam,[20] from which he matriculated at age 15.[21] From childhood, he interacted with farming and farmers; his extended family grew rice, mangoes, and coconut, and later expanded into other areas such as coffee.[22] He saw the impact that fluctuations in the price of crops had on his family, including the devastation that weather and pests could cause to crops as well as incomes.[23]
His parents wanted him to study medicine. With that in mind, he started off his higher education with zoology.[24] But when he witnessed the impacts of the Bengal famine of 1943 during the Second World War and shortages of rice throughout the sub-continent, he decided to devote his life to ensuring India had enough food.[25] Despite his family background, and belonging to an era where medicine and engineering were considered much more prestigious, he chose agriculture.[26]
He went on to finish his undergraduate degree in zoology at Maharaja's College in Trivandrum, Kerala (now known as University College, Thiruvananthapuram at the University of Kerala).[21] He then studied at University of Madras (Madras Agricultural College, now the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University) from 1940 to 1944 and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Science.[27] During this time he was also taught by Cotah Ramaswami, a professor of agronomy.[28]
In 1947 he moved to the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi to study genetics and plant breeding.[29] He obtained a post-graduate degree with high distinction in cytogenetics in 1949. His research focused on the genus Solanum, with specific attention to the potato.[30] Social pressures resulted in him competing in the examinations for civil services, through which he was selected to the Indian Police Service.[31] At the same time, an opportunity for him arose in the agriculture field in the form of a UNESCO fellowship in genetics in the Netherlands. He chose genetics.[31]
Swaminathan was a UNESCO fellow at the Wageningen Agricultural University's Institute of Genetics in the Netherlands for eight months.[32] The demand for potatoes during the Second World War resulted in deviations in age-old crop rotations. This caused golden nematode infestations in certain areas such as reclaimed agricultural lands. Swaminathan worked on adapting genes to provide resilience against such parasites, as well as cold weather. To this effect, the research succeeded.[33] Ideologically the university influenced his later scientific pursuits in India with respect to food production.[34] During this time he also made a visit to the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in war-torn Germany; this would later influence him deeply as during his next visit, a decade later, he saw that the Germans had transformed Germany, both infrastructurally and energetically.[35]
Swaminathan then spent 15 months in the United States.[38] He accepted a post-doctoral research associateship at the University of Wisconsin's Laboratory of Genetics to help set up a USDA potato research station.[38] The laboratory at the time had Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg on its faculty.[39] His associateship ended in December 1953. Swaminathan turned down a faculty position in order to continue to make a difference back home in India.[40]
Swaminathan returned to India in early 1954. There were no jobs in his specialisation and it was only three months later that he received an opportunity through a former professor to work temporarily as an assistant botanist at Central Rice Research Institute in Cuttack.[41] At Cuttack, he was under an indica-japonica rice hybridisation program started by Krishnaswami Ramiah. This stint would go on to influence his future work with wheat.[42] Half a year later he joined Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi in October 1954 as an assistant cytogeneticist.[41] Swaminathan was critical of India importing food grains when seventy percent of India was dependent on agriculture. Further drought and famine-like situations were developing in the country.[43]
Swaminathan and Norman Borlaug collaborated, with Borlaug touring India and sending supplies for a range of Mexican dwarf varieties of wheat, which were to be bred with Japanese varieties.[45] Initial testing in an experimental plot showed good results. The crop was high-yield, good quality, and disease free.[46] There was hesitation by farmers to adopt the new variety whose high yields were unnerving.[46] In 1964, following repeated requests by Swaminathan to demonstrate the new variety, he was given funding to plant small demonstration plots. A total of 150 demonstration plots on 1 hectare were planted.[46] The results were promising and the anxieties of the farmers were reduced.[46] More modifications were made to the grain in the laboratory to better suit Indian conditions.[47] The new wheat varieties were sown and in 1968 production went to 17 million tonnes, 5 million tonnes more than the last harvest.[48]
The Green Revolution has been a team effort and much of the credit for its spectacular development must go to the Indian officials, organizations, scientists, and farmers. However, to you, Dr. Swaminathan, a great deal of the credit must go for first recognizing the potential value of the Mexican dwarfs. Had this not occurred, it is quite possible that there would not have been a Green Revolution in Asia.
Notable contributions were made by Indian agronomists and geneticists such as Gurdev Khush and Dilbagh Singh Athwal.[8] The Government of India declared India self-sufficient in food production in 1971.[49] India and Swaminathan could now deal with other serious issues of access to food, hunger, and nutrition.[49][50][51] He was with IARI between 1954 and 1972.[1]
In 1972, Swaminathan was appointed as the director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and a secretary to the Government of India.[52] In 1979, in a rare move for a scientist, he was made a principal secretary, a senior position in the Government of India.[53] The next year he was shifted to the Planning Commission.[54] As director-general of ICAR, he pushed for technical literacy, setting up centres all over India for this.[53] Droughts during this period led him to form groups to watch weather and crop patterns, with the ultimate aim of protecting the poor from malnutrition.[55] His shift to the Planning Commission for two years resulted in the introduction of women and environment with respect to development in India's five year plans for the first time.[54][52]
In 1982, he was made the first Asian director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.[54] He was there until 1988.[1] One of the contributions he made during his tenure here was conducting an international conference "Women in Rice Farming Systems".[56] For this, the United States-based Association for Women in Development gave Swaminathan their first award for "outstanding contributions to the integration of women in development".[57] As director general, he spread awareness among rice-growing families of making the value of each part of the rice crop.[57] His leadership at IRRI was instrumental in the first World Food Prize being awarded to him.[9] In 1984 he became the president and vice-president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and World Wildlife Fund respectively.[58]
In 1987 he was awarded the first World Food Prize.[59] The prize money was used to set up the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.[60] Accepting the award, Swaminathan spoke of the growing hunger despite the increase in food production. He spoke of the fear of sharing "power and resources", and that the goal of a world without hunger remains unfinished.[61] In their commendation letters, Javier Prez de Cullar, Frank Press, President Ronald Reagan, and others recognized his efforts.[62]