In February 2024, the renowned Indian geneticist Dr. MS Swaminathan was posthumously awarded the country’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna. This was in recognition of the dramatic increase in the yields of food staples, such as rice and wheat, that Indian agriculture experienced under his stewardship of the ‘green revolution’ in the 20th century. That revolution is credited with saving many people from hunger and malnutrition across Asia and Latin America. And yet, half-a-century on farmers’ incomes in Africa, Asia and Europe are falling and in many countries farmers are on the streets protesting. At the same time, the environmental impacts of intensive food production are becoming increasingly clear. So do we need a new ‘green revolution’? And is the use of the latest agricultural technology, from robots to AI the answer? Rajan Datar discusses the past and present of food growing with Professor of Economics Douglas Gollin, crop scientist Professor Nigel Halford, historian of science Dr. Madhumita Saha, robotics project manager Andreas Hofland and listeners from around the world. (Photo: Green ear of wheat. Credit: binabina/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
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Welcome to the Forum from the BBC World Service.
I'm Rajan Datta.
Many of us like growing some of our food, even if we have the space for only a few pots.
We've been asking World Service listeners on Facebook to share their experiences of producing their own crops, and it turns out that they grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, from avocados to pineapples, courgettes to potatoes.
I love avocados.
I love avocados and I've always tried to have an avocado tree from seed.
So buying the avocados that I like, you know, identifying the types of like, because there's a huge variety of avocados.
And so I would make sure that I would keep the seeds and, you know, make them germinate.
The ones that I liked, I would make germinate.
And I've been so lucky because now after three years, I actually have huge avocados.
They're wonderful and this is my first crop, so I'm super proud.
I've even counted them, they're about 50.
Some of them have unfortunately dropped and so they get smashed up.
But I still am waiting on the other ones to try them out.
So I'm really super proud about my avocados.