54 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Experimentation on growing soyabean was started by various USA-tied agricultural universities, particularly the Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University at Pantnagar and the Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Viswa Vidyalaya.Jabalpur, in collaboration most appropriately, with the University of Illinois, USA, and lately as part of an All-India Coordinated Research Project on soyabean initiated by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) since 1967. Similarly, some post-harvest processing and utilisation studies were initiated at some centres. Soybean has also been grown in selected areas in the country for some years; the area being rapidly increased, and the target planned for 1973-74 at 600,000 hectares. The current production is about 70,000 tonnes, and the target for 1975-76, is 500,000 tonnes. The cotton-maize belt, particularly areas in Madhya Pradesh, UP, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra, is considered to be particularly suitable for soya cultivation. All these developments have now duly paid off in the proposed Faridabad plant; and more such 'most modern9 plants will surely come up in due course. On the surface, the proposal no doubt has everything to commend itself. To be able to solve the protein and oil problems of the country and also take a giant step towards 'industrialisation' with a 'most modern5 plant like this, would certainly appear to be highly laudable. However, are the basic arguments behind the proposition, namely, high yield of soyabean, fighting protein malnutrition and overcoming the oil famine valid ? Soyabean vs Groundnut Some data on these aspects were furnished earlier by Narendra Singh in anticipation of the present developments.3 The case for soyabean in India has to be seen primarily in the context of groundnut, which is the major oilseed in the country and also a relatively rich source of protein, and in a way the counterpart of soyabean here. The pulses are also very important here from the standpoint of protein. The yield of soyabean in USA is undoubtedly more than that of groundnut in India. But this is no conclusive argument, because yield of practically all crops are lower in India. The current yield of soyabean in India (8 to 12 quintals per hectare), too, is more than that of groundnut (7 to 8 quintals per hectare) and it is claimed that this can be further increased substantially. But this again is of no significance because a considerable amount of research has been carried out in breeding better varieties and for proper agronomic practices for soyabean in the USA, all of which is being applied in India. But comparable work of this kind has either not been done on groundnut, or the results are not being applied by farmer^ in practice, due to various socio-economic reasons. One can safely say that if our agricultural universities were to devote equal attention to genetic and agronomic improvement of our own groundnut crop, and if the results were applied in practice the yield of groundnut could also b3 raised proportionately.