Tore Olsson, Historian: Farmers in Sonora were not peasant farmers. They tended to be larger in terms of their land holdings.
They tended to be commercially-oriented, growing wheat for exports. Borlaug finally got grudging permission to go to Sonora, but there was to be no budget, no support, no machinery, accommodations, or vehicle. No matter: at the beginning of November , Norman Borlaug packed up the seeds from the four plants that survived the summer epidemic, and headed north.
Noel Vietmeyer, Agronomist: He went up to Sonora and he squatted in a derelict old research station that had been abandoned. It had no running water.
The windows had been broken out and there were rats everywhere. He didn't have a horse, so he was actually taking a harness that normally was attached a draft animal, to a horse or an oxen or whatever, strapping it around his chest and arms, and plowing himself. By cross-breeding his four survivors with other successful varieties, he hoped to produce the perfect wheat.
The critical moment arrived when the wheat began to flower. Noel Vietmeyer, Agronomist: Wheat is self-pollinating, so to make a cross pollination you have to cut the female floret when it's just at the right point, and remove all of its pollen so that it can't pollinate itself; you've got to get every last one.
And then you have to cover it with paper to stop any foreign pollen blowing in on the wind. Four days later, when the male is producing pollen then you bring that one over and pour its pollen down so you've got a cross pollinated plant. It's very, very complicated, and Norm had to teach himself. Mann, Biographer: This is something that plant breeders have been doing for, you know, a very, very long time at this point.
What they haven't done is to do it on a massive scale. It's such a phenomenal amount of work that nobody in their right mind would think of doing it. Narrator: At night, as Borlaug lay on the floor with rats scampering over his bedroll, the ghosts crowded in. By he had wheat that resisted stem rust, grew anywhere, in any season, and delivered huge quantities of high-quality grain. But that remarkable achievement came with one, big, catch. In order to deliver those yields, his wheat needed unprecedented levels of chemical fertilizer and lots of water.
Noel Vietmeyer, Agronomist: Fertilizer was the key to getting the absolute greatest productivity out of these plants — ten times what the average wheat farmer was getting. Narrator: Borlaug wanted to fight hunger by producing lots of food. But his wheat relied on a costly recipe; only farmers who could afford that fertilizer and had access to irrigation water stood to benefit.
Poor farmers - the ones the Rockefeller Foundation had come to help - would be largely left behind. Tore Olsson, Historian: Borlaug is coming to challenge in many ways the established direction of the program, which was trying to help small scale poor farmers in central Mexico. It is a fundamental distraction from what we're trying to accomplish. And the surplus labor - which is what most people in rural areas became - they were going to be city people.
Nick Cullather, Historian: Chinese Communist troops march south singing about rice and beans. Americans interpreted the Chinese Civil War as a conflict that was based on resources, and particularly on food.
In Washington, alarm bells were ringing. Tore Olsson, Historian: The Rockefeller Foundation bosses in New York, who are working quite collaboratively with the State Department, come to realize that Borlaug is actually doing something that might be valuable for the global Cold War: a universal program to feed a hungry world. Narrator: The Rockefeller Foundation began recasting the Mexico program.
Not only was Borlaug given a free hand in Sonora, but his agenda began to eclipse the original mission. He would soon need all of those resources, and more. The problem appeared in the early s, as Borlaug was achieving unprecedented yields.
Noel Vietmeyer, Agronomist: He was getting plants with so much grain up there that the five foot long stem just couldn't hold it up. Towards the end of the season, winds would blow whole fields over.
He had to find some way to strengthen the stems. And the only way he could see to do that was to shrink the plant. This time there were no shortcuts, no lucky breaks, just thousands and thousands of crosses, and years of frustration. Finally, in , after seven years and crosses, the dwarf wheat program came through. Noel Vietmeyer, Agronomist: It was this amazing development. And Norm patented nothing - nothing. Nick Cullather, Historian: The Rockefeller Foundation began to see places in the world where the techniques Borlaug developed in Mexico might be practically used.
They started out in a particular place, with a particular set of political goals. But increasingly they began to see it as a program for the salvation of the world. Within weeks Borlaug was on his way to New Delhi.
One of the most far-reaching enterprises of the 20th century had begun. Howard K. Smith: India's problem is easily stated. India is one third the size of the United States, but it has a population greater than that of all North America and South America together: some million people.
In the next twenty-five years, if nothing happens, that huge population will double to million. If India has trouble feeding millions now, how can she feed twice that number within a generation? Reporter: The man whose ambition is to turn India into a food exporting country is Dr Swaminathan.
Nick Cullather, Historian: Swaminathan had begun to do his own research on wheat. He came across some research materials about the dwarf wheat varieties and he conceives of the idea of inviting Norman Borlaug. Ms Swaminathan, Agronomist: We had the same ideas, we had the same rules in life. And I liked his approach. George Varughese, Agronomist: Dr. Swaminathan is an excellent politician. He is so quiet, slow operator. Borlaug is not that way. He will start very polite, but if at one stage he finds things are not going very well, you cannot hold him back.
Nick Cullather, Historian: Borlaug is playing a very different role than the role he played in Mexico. In Mexico Borlaug is working largely as a scientist. When he gets to India he's working with Swaminathan, reaching out as a salesman to a skeptical population and government. Narrator: The political challenge was enormous. The wholesale adoption of high yield wheat entailed massive investments.
Fertilizer would have to be imported until a domestic industry could meet the demand, and irrigation built up across thousands of square miles. The government would also have to guarantee a minimum price to farmers, so they could afford to adapt to the new practices. Now accepting applications for the new Endeavor Program, a unique educational experience designed for you!
A fifth generation farmer from West Tennessee, Butler is passionate about the importance of U. He has spent countless hours traveling across the country and around the world telling the story of U.
As a young boy, he enjoyed the benefits of growing up on a farm and all the life lessons he was able to see and experience as he was able to participate in different activities. He grew up with a love for the lifestyle and appreciation for the hard work that is a part of the farming community. Upon graduation, he worked for Cargill, Inc. Butler spends his days helping consumers better understand agriculture as well as growing and advancing the industry regionally, nationally and internationally.
It is an honor to have the chance to serve in this role. In addition, Butler has served on several commodity associations and has been very active in numerous professional organizations such as the American and Tennessee Farm Bureaus, the United Soybean Board, the Tennessee Beef Industry Council, the Tennessee Soybean Association, and the Center for Food Integrity, to name a few. I think one of the most important things is to look at all the waste we have in the system. I mean, all of the resources that went into all that food are wasted.
And in addition to that, a lot of that food ends up in a landfill, where it turns into methane. And so, it's like you've shot yourself in both feet there. And we've really got to get a handle on the food waste. And we just waste a lot of organic matter in general, you know, into landfills — material that should be composted and put back into the soil, and instead, it's burned or it's put in a landfill or, maybe, it's dumped at sea.
Tom: You know, I had not heard that about the Amazon, about the condition of the soil on the forest floor. And meantime, we have experienced deforestation in this country, in places like Appalachia, due to surface mining and so forth that was on lands that were rich in soil, and we lost that as a result of the clear-cutting. A lot of irony at work here. But looking into the future, how do you see agriculture adapting to more sustainable practices?
David: Enthusiastically. And I might not have said that a year ago, but I really think the conversation has changed.
You know, there are so many online conferences now where people are talking about real solutions to climate change — how can we start to put carbon into the soil, how can we change some of the practices that we have that are so dependent on too many chemicals, too much chemical fertilizer? You know, how can we protect our water? It doesn't have to be the way we've always done it for the last many decades.
But when you combine that with science and innovation and a really precise use of technology and modern automation and mechanization, then you can see do those things at scale. Tom: Yeah. I really do think we are. How can we make the changes that we need to make, and how can we do it in a way that doesn't put it on the backs of the farmers?
And the whole world is going to benefit when we start to put carbon back into the soil. So, the farmer should benefit from that as well. David: Well, I think there is a lot more talk now about complex multiple crop rotations, about cover crops keeping the soil covered year-round.
Soil health is a big, big topic — much bigger than it used to be. And rotational grazing is also very, very important. And so, you mimic, kind of, the behavior of a natural herd that is chased by predators and is constantly moving through the environment. And that means that instead of turning them loose on acres and just letting them mow that all year long, you're moving them around these small paddocks and into every paddock.
It's a very long rest time, and the animals are bunched together, and they trample the grass into the ground, and they fertilize it. And that's how the soils in our grasslands were created, you know: in that symbiotic kind of relationship with herd animals.
And those grasslands are some of the most rich — they were some of the most rich carbon sinks on the planet. Tom: Wow. That's really fascinating, and the whole thing is. The Butler Gold throws the feed loosely to the trough, without pressure. Thanks to its special auger, freshness and quality are retained and your animals will be encouraged to take more feed.
Whether hay, straw, green silage, grass or TMR, the Butler Gold pushes feed that has been pushed away back towards the bars. At the same time, it spreads small quantities of concentrated feed onto the basic feed several times per day. To feed each individual group, two different types of feed can be distributed at the same time. This encourages the natural feeding behaviour of the animals and increases feed consumption.
This improves ruminal activity and animal health, and also increases milk yield. The animals are fed like in a total mixed ration TMR. The Butler Gold can be integrated in every stable with minimal effort.
0コメント