Ageless scientist

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Chennai: Age cannot wither him, nor custom stale his infinite experience. Even after retirement, this ever-young scientist who wanted to continue his research in agriculture to help society, started his research foundation in the city at the age of 63.
Your guess is right: he is none other than Prof. M. S. Swaminathan. Eighty-eight-year-old Prof Swaminathan narrated to Deccan Chronicle, how he started his foundation and how it has grown beyond his expectations.
“When I came back from the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, I wanted to fill  certain gaps in coastal zone management and bring about coordinated planning and thinking between the forest and fisheries departments. So I started MSSRF in two rooms at IIT-M and used the money that came with the World Food prize to set up a trust,” said Prof Swaminathan.
Noting that 20 per cent of people live within 30 to 40 km from the shoreline and that India has 7,500 km of coastline, Prof Swaminathan said the most worrying factor is the rise in sea-level.
“So we worked on how to link ecological security in coastal areas with livelihoods of people on land. We suggested scientific methods of income generation and introduced fish farms, mushroom cultivation and growing halophytes (salt tolerant varieties), while also imparting computer education to villagers,” he added.
“I knew that mangrove forests were getting destroyed. So we worked on the process to conserve them and also trained the local community,’ he added. Prof Swaminathan also said that his foundation carried out research for identifying genes for salinity, drought and nutritional enhancement from mangroves and transferred them to rice and pulses.
“Salt tolerant genetic material has been transferred to locally cultivated rice varieties and field evaluation was carried out in the Kalpakkam region. India has nine million hectares of cultivable land which are under salinity stress. Hence this transgenic rice variety is ideal for use. But then for some reasons, government has not yet cleared this rice variety and so it has not been released for cultivation,” he added.  
MSSRF helps improve Nagai farming
For Nagapattinam farmer C. Rajasekaran, it was a victory of sorts when Prof M.S. Swaminathan agreed that the food chain should not be disturbed, at a farewell meeting in his village in 1996.
Known to argue often with Prof Swaminathan on the ill effects of using chemicals, Rajasekaran said that various activities conducted by MSSRF has helped development of sustainable agriculture in his tsunami affected region.
“The professor used to prescribe chemicals and insecticides. These actually kill good bacteria and also good insects, damaging the ecological balance. So we used to fight with him. But we learnt that it was due to governmental pressure to increase food production that he had advocated the use of chemicals. He himself told us that it was better that the ecological balance was not disturbed,” recalled Rajasekaran who has been awarded a fellowship at the National Virtual Academy for practicing organic farming. 
Rajasekaran, who is also the secretary of Sustainable Agriculture Development,  agreed that Prof Swaminathan’s projects like coastal systems research and allied activities have yielded good results in Nagapattinam, which was affected badly during the 2004 tsunami. “Today goats in about 20 villages nearby are the offshoots of Jamuna Bai, a goat which the MSSRF gave to us for rearing,” he added.
He said scientists from MSSRF also shared various research ideas in growing rice and vegetables in saline water and also showed them the way to develop vermicompost.
Fisherman L. Nagamuthu from Pichavaram near Chidambaram says, “MSSRF people spoke to us about the importance of growing mangroves and the need for their restoration; when we decided to try their methods, our lifestyle improved. The MSSRF started a school for our children and also got us fishing nets. During the tsunami, thanks to the mangroves, but for the loss of seven lives, our village was safe and we did not lose any property,” he added.
From Kumbakonam to TIME 20 list of most influential Asians
Born in Kumbakonam as second son to surgeon Dr M. K. Sambasivam, Moncombu Sambasivam Swaminathan graduated in Zoology at Maharajas College in Trivandrum and later did agricultural sciences at TNAU, before specializing in genetics and plant breeding at Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi.
After completing his Unesco fellowship at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, he worked at Inter-Regional Potato Introduction Station in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
On his return to India, he joined Central Rice Research Institute in Orissa as assistant botanist and experimented with crossing rice varieties in order to create a new strain with increased yields. Within six months he moved to Delhi and grew step by step to become the director of the botany division in IARI.
During that period he was instrumental in introducing high-yielding varieties of wheat that allowed government to increase cereal production to feed hungry mouths. He shot to fame as director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, and later moved on to become the principal secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture.
He also served as director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Philippines.
He has won numerous awards including the second highest civilian award Padma Vibhushan in India.
At the global level, he has been presented with Ramon Magsaysay award, World Food Prize and Four Freedoms award apart from being acclaimed by the TIME magazine as one of the 20 most influential Asians of the 20th century and one of the only three from India, the other two being Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.