‘Paddy daddy’ feels the crop no longer the right fit for Punjab
“I am extremely pained to see the paddy crops I developed proving to be the Achilles’ heel of agriculture in Punjab and exhausting its fossil water reserves,” said California-based, internationally famed rice breeder Dr Gurdev Singh Khush in a conversation with The Tribune.
The man who has developed more than 300 rice varieties grown all over the world remarked, “Rice is vital to the survival of millions, but Punjab needs to stop growing it any further. Underground water is drying up fast, and I can see deserts marching into the ‘Land of Five Rivers’. The only way to wean farmers off the current wheat-paddy cycle is for the government to provide them with an assured Minimum Support Price (MSP) on crops like pulses, soybeans, and mustard.”
Winner of the World Food Prize in 1996 while working at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, Dr Khush was honoured for his work on “enlarging and improving the global supply of rice during a time of exponential population growth”.
In recognition of his contributions to the field of food security, Dr Khush has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Borlaug Award in 1977, the Japan Prize in 1987, the World Food Prize in 1996, the Rank Prize in 1998, the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 2000, the Padma Shri in 2000, the Golden Sickle Award in 2007, and the Mahathir Science Award in 2009. He has also received honorary doctorate degrees from 12 universities, including Cambridge University and Ohio State University.
Dr Khush said, “Increasing food production is one of the biggest challenges that mankind faces today. By 2050, we need to increase our food production by at least 50 per cent. I believe tissue culture, molecular marker technology, genetic engineering, and allied disciplines are vital for developing crop varieties with higher yields.”
He has a son and three daughters. One of his daughters, who was a doctor, has passed away. His youngest daughter is a cardiologist and serves as a staff physician at Stanford University. His son, a scientist, has worked on projects related to sanitation and drinking water. “We have six grandchildren,” he said.
Roots
He said, “I was born in Khatkar Kalan (Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district) on August 22, 1933. However, my academic records show my birth year as 1935 in Rorkee, Jalandhar. Actually, I was the first child in our family, so my mother went to her maternal home for my delivery. The place and date of birth were wrongly recorded at my school when I was admitted to Rorkee later, and these errors have stuck with me throughout my life.”
It was with my maternal grandparents during the first seven years of my life. Those were the most carefree times I ever spent while growing up. Me and my cousins climbed trees during summers, played, and grew crops on small unused land during winters. We did not have any organised sports,” he reminisced.
“I graduated from Government Agricultural College, Ghumar Mandi, Ludhiana. It was christened Punjab Agricultural University in 1962. We had no more than 200 students on campus, but the company was very interactive, and we had a very supportive faculty,” he said.
The shift abroad
He applied for admission to the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) after his graduation but was refused entry. “I had, in fact, borrowed Rs 10,000 from my friends and relatives to show in my account to qualify for travelling abroad.”
He applied to three universities in California and was admitted to the University of California for an MSc course in 1957. Impressed with his fieldwork after two semesters, he was allowed to skip his exams and proceed directly to work on his PhD degree.
Dr Ronald P Cantrell, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, visited California in 1972 and selected him for a project in plant breeding, specialising in rice. During his more than 35-year career at IRRI, he spearheaded the programme to develop high-yielding, disease- and insect-resistant rice varieties that ushered in the green revolution in rice farming. These varieties have been released in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. IRRI-bred varieties are now grown on more than 60 percent of the world’s rice land.
After his retirement, he became an adjunct professor at the University of California.
Punjab connection continues
He is a very regular visitor at PAU. “Punjab lives in my heart. I come very often to PAU and love spending time with the faculty and students. I am coming again later this year as well,” he said. In fact, a museum dedicated to Dr Khush was inaugurated on the university campus in October 2023.
Diaspora