Question

What is Dr Norman Bourlaug’s contribution to wheat cultivation in India?

Answer 1

Hint: Wheat is the second-most important food crop grown in India after rice and India contributes to 12.3% of the total wheat produced in the world. Dr Norman Borlaug is an American agronomist who has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom and other such high honours for his contribution in the field of modern agriculture. He was sent to India in 1963 along with Dr Robert Glenn Anderson by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Government of Mexico.

Complete answer:Dr Norman Borlaug is known for leading the initiatives and research that substantially increased agricultural productivity and ushered into the Green Revolution in the 1960s. He was widely regarded as the ‘Father of Green Revolution’. The technology introduced by him adopted a High Yielding Variety of seeds for dwarf what and rice. During the Green Revolution period, there was a tremendous increase in agricultural production in India mainly due to institutional and technological factors like agrarian economy, consolidation of landholdings, reclamation of new agricultural lands, development of irrigation, use of biochemical inputs comprising high yielding variety seeds, chemical fertilisers, insecticides and mechanical inputs, etc. Other countries that had a significant impact of the Green Revolution were Mexico, Philippines, Brazil and Pakistan.

Note: The leading wheat-producing states in India are Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Being a Rabi crop, it is sown in winter and harvested in summer and requires well-irrigated land. The optimum temperature required for growth of wheat is 20-23° C and any form of clayey and loamy soil supports the growth of wheat.