M.S. Swaminathan will give a talk at SLCU on the critical role plant science plays in tackling the challenge of world hunger.
A plant geneticist by training, Professor Swaminathan’s is widely celebrated for his leadership of India’s Green Revolution, especially over his tenure as Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (1972-1979). His advocacy of sustainable agriculture leading to an ‘ever-green revolution’ makes him an acknowledged world leader in the field of sustainable food security.
Amongst other distinctions, Professor Swaminathan was Chairman of the UN Science Advisory Committee, Director General of the International Rice Research Institute, Independent Chairman of the FAO Council, and President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). He has received one of India’s highest civilian honours, the Padma Vibhushan, and a number of international awards and citations, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Albert Einstein World Science Award, the UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize and the World Food Prize. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1973, and as Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 1977.
Professor M S Swaminathan was listed by TIME magazine as one of the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century and one of only three from India, the other two being Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. He has been described by the United Nations Environment Programme as “the Father of Economic Ecology” and by Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary General of the United Nations, as “a living legend who will go into the annals of history as a world scientist of rare distinction”. He is Founder, Emeritus Chairman and Chief Mentor at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, India.
This event is part of the Humanitarian Centre's Global Food Futures Year and the Cambridge University Botanic Garden's Festival of Plants. The event is co-hosted by the Sainsbury Laboratory, the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.
Attendance is free but ticketed. Tickets are available from https://zero-hunger.eventbrite.co.uk
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