The Wire

In the 1960’s Indian agriculture was in a bad way – farmers could not produce enough to go near feeding the enormous and growing population. Then along came the Green revolution – farmers were given new varieties of rice and wheat and taught new farming methods and as a result production increased dramatically. Professor MS Swaminathan has become known as the father of that revolution – his influence has been compared to that of Mahatma Ghandi. He’s currently visiting Australia as the guest of a conference looking at climate change and agriculture, being held today at the University of Melbourne. He says what the world needs now is an evergreen revolution and that Australia has a key part to play.