Dr. Lamba came from an army Sikh family. His father commanded the Sikh Light Infantry that fought in several places during World War II. In 1947, his family escaped from what is now Pakistan as refugees. After 1950, his family lived all over India in army cantonments. After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1970 he joined and then graduated with a Ph.D. degree in engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He worked for about 40 years in industry, mainly in the Chicago area, the last 30 years of which was in a railway locomotive company as a materials and design engineer and manager of advanced technology. He was continuously active all these years in environmental and development nonprofit organizations involving India and South Asia, solar and renewable energy, a global environmental group, and global climate change issues.

Besides learning about and practicing organic gardening in his backyard for about thirty years, he highlighted the damage caused by “green revolution” agriculture and promoted organic and natural farming in his book, “Rethinking Progress – Towards the Creative Transformation of Global Society,” Daanish Books, New Delhi, 2005. In his recent book on climate change, “Brighter Climate Futures”, besides all the other benefits, he highlights the fact that organic and natural farming can absorb much higher levels of carbon (as organic matter) in the soil – he calls this “brown” carbon – this is a major solution for climate change.

Dr. Lamba has been fully involved and has participated in the formation of PAGRI from the time the idea was thought of about five years ago. He supports the need for the rejuvenation of Punjab’s (and India’s) farm economy, and increase in the prestige and income of farmers, the encouragement of organic and natural farming (both to increase incomes and to promote consumer health), and the increased income from the processing of agricultural crops that is grassroots and free of domination by Agri-business (typically involved in selling chemical fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and seeds) and large corporate houses that exploit farmers.”

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