‘It’s payback time to my homeland’: Prof Harbans Bariana donates family land for village dispensary

Prof Harbans Bariana, on a visit to his village from Australia, earlier this year, convinced his father and other family members to donate their family land for setting up for a dispensary to the village panchayat of Nangal Isher, Hoshiarpur district. He also conducted a three-week workshop at his alma mater Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana, during that period.

Besides an illuminating career overseas, as a professor of Cereal Rust Genetics at the University of Sydney before his retirement in 2022, Prof Bariana has always stayed connected with his roots. “I want to do as much possible for my homeland, in this phase of my life. It’ s my payback time to my homeland,” he says.

Growing up ploughing fields while toiling for a better harvest during his early years, Prof Bariana was always enamoured with saving crop from yield loss — which was a common problem farmers faced.

He went to Australia on a scholarship after his post-graduation at PAU and is now a part of international research groups specialising in wheat crop. He is currently an adjunct professor in the School of Plant Sciences in Western Sydney University. He is actively involved in international rust research and has successfully delivered tangible results in collaboration with his national and international colleagues.

He went on to win the prestigious Borlaug Global Rust Initiative Gene Stewardship Award in 2013 for his work as part of the team on wheat rust and releasing rust-resistant wheat varieties.  Having travelled internationally with his subject expertise, he has also worked in China, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan.

A decorated researcher in wheat care, he has guided more than 30 post- doctoral (PhDs) studies.

Punjab connection continues

Continuing old connection with his alma mater, Prof Bariana conducted a three-week workshop at PAU, earlier this year, under the Union Government’s Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration. He was selected as Pravasi Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India, in 2024 which is offered by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS). He was also part of a 10-year collaboration project with India on faster wheat improvement and rust resistance in wheat.

Journey

“I was not able to decide on my future course of action after my schooling. I did my post matriculation at Hindu National College, Hariana. Being the first male child in a family of four siblings, I was very pampered. I was happy going to my fields every morning when my father, Headmaster Kewal Singh, one day, gave me the ultimatum. He asked me to leave the village and get admitted wherever I could for my higher education,” he said.

Choosing PAU seemed a natural choice to him and he enrolled for the BSc course in 1977. He completed his Honours in Crop Protection (Plant Pathology and Entomology). He was awarded a scholarship funded jointly by the Prime Wheat Association and Wheat Research Council (forebears of the Grain Research and Development Corporation Australia) for his PhD at University of Sydney Plant Breeding Institute. “It was possible with my research work under supervision of Dr SS Sokhi and recommendation of Dr Khem Singh Gill and Darshan Singh Brar,” he said.

In Australia, he was appointed as a Research Fellow to lead Germplasm Screening and Enhancement aspects of the National Cereal Rust Control Program and became an integral part of the Australian wheat industry.

With all humility, he acknowledges the crucial role his wife, Rajinder Pal Kaur Bariana, played during the financially insecure early years of his research. “She worked hard to help us make ends meet. Rajinder supported my research by assisting me in the fields. Her parents also sometimes came to help me maintain the research plots,” he said.

Current engagement

His research group has identified more than 20 stripe rust resistance genes in addition to naming of some key genes for stem rust and leaf rust resistance in wheat. He is a supporter of technological advances and was instrumental in cloning of the first stem rust resistance gene and the outcome was published in Science, an eminent peer-reviewed academic journal.

Diaspora