The national and ecumenical career of the eminent Greek agriculturist Ioannis Papadakis

Abstract

This article reviews in depth life, works and spirit of the eminent Greek agriculturist Ioannis Papadakis. Primarily, it shows the way Papadakis, working mainly as a plant breeder from 1923, tackled the major problem of Greek agricultural history, namely the accomplishment of Greece’s wheat self-sufficiency, by inventing new, high-yielding, varieties of great adaptability to the adverse soil and climatic conditions of the country. The solution to this problem is regarded as an outstanding achievement of agricultural research and policy in Greece. However, today, judging in the comfort of time-distance from the events of the Mid-war period and in an effort to interpret the outcome of this exercise and its implications on the development of Greece’s agricultural economy, one could say that the pursued single-cultivation of wheat with a simultaneous decrease in the area devoted to growing of certain crops destined for forage or other animal feed resources, this had a negative effect as regards the imbalanced evolution of the various branches of agricultural production in favor of wheat. Therefore, this partial approach brought about a dramatic delay in the development of the animal production sector, contributing to the huge exchange deficit for importing animal products in contemporary Greece. Nevertheless, Ioannis Papadakis had received the mandate by the Hellenic State for achieving the country’s wheat self-sufficiency and in this respect was successful and worked for it impeccably. Furthermore, in 1947, after having been invited by Argentina to construct its ecological map, he emigrated permanently to that country. Papadakis had published (1938) in French the first of its kind book worldwide “Agricultural Ecology”. He was also invited to write the entry “Soils” in Encyclopaedia Britannica. He worked for Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and studied agricultural questions in South America, West Africa, South-East Asia and elsewhere. He wrote research and review papers on several aspects of agriculture, including field crops, plant breeding, biometry, soil science, agricultural ecology as well as rural economy and policy. This article concludes with some of Papadakis’ thoughts, stemming from his own wisdom of experience, accumulated from his long service in Greece, Argentina and elsewhere in the world.