S. S. Walia obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in agronomy from Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana. He joined PAU as an assistant professor (agronomy) in 1995 and was elevated to the position of Principal Agronomist in 2010. He started organic farming research as a pioneer work at PAU, Ludhiana, as Ph.D. student (2001–04) and then worked on organic farming and integrated farming systems in the All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Integrated Farming Systems and the All India Network Project on Organic Farming. Dr. Walia is credited with more than 450 research and extension publications, 9 books, 10 teaching manuals, 7 extension folders, and 22 book chapters. He has handled 24 research projects in the past and is currently handling 5 more. He is the recipient of the best organic farming center award (2019) from ICAR; the Dr. M. S. Randhawa best book award (2017); a gold medal from the Society of Recent Development in Agriculture at an international conference (2013); the ISA best paper award, along with a cash prize of INR 5000 from the Indian Society of Agronomy (2011) for his paper entitled "Alternate cropping systems to rice-wheat for Punjab”; and the ISA P. S. Deshmukh young agronomist award (2005) from the Indian Society of Agronomy. He was also received of fellowships from the Indian Ecological Society (2016) and Society of Environmental Sciences (2004).