The man who helped feed the world
Thankfully, Ehrlich was wrong, because he didn't know what Norman Borlaug had been doing.for the years he had spent shuttling between Mexico City and the Yaqui Valley, growing thousands upon thousands of kinds of wheat, and carefully noting their traits: this kind resisted one type of stem rust, but not another; this kind produced good yields, but made bad bread; and so on.
But he could cross the varieties which had some good traits, and hope that one of the cross-breeds would happen to have all the good traits and none of the bad.Borlaug produced new kinds of"dwarf" wheat that resisted rust, yielded well, and - crucially - had short stems, so they didn't topple over in the wind.
Borlaug soon saw why. Ignoring his instructions, they'd planted too deep, too far apart, and without fertilizing or weeding. The man replied, perplexed:"This is the way you plant wheat in Pakistan."For half a century, Pakistan's wheat yields had been consistent: never above 800lbs an acre. Mexican farmers were now getting more than three times that.
Borlaug could be blunt with people who didn't get it, no matter who they were. In India, he got into a yelling match with the deputy prime minister.
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