首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Norman Borlaug: ’ Father of the Green Revolution’ Few people have quietly changed the world for the better more than this ru
Norman Borlaug: ’ Father of the Green Revolution’ Few people have quietly changed the world for the better more than this ru
admin
2013-08-27
58
问题
Norman Borlaug: ’ Father of the Green Revolution’
Few people have quietly changed the world for the better more than this rural lad from the midwestern state of Iowa in the United States. The man in focus is Norman Borlaug, the Father of the ’Green Revolution’, who died on September 12, 2009 at age 95. Norman Borlaug spent most of his 60 working years in the farmlands of Mexico, South Asia and later in Africa, fighting world hunger, and saving by some estimates up to a billion lives in the process. An achievement, fit for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Early Years
"I’m a product of the great depression" is how Borlaug described himself. A great-grandson of Norwegian immigrants to the United States, Borlaug was born in 1914 and grew up on a small farm in the northeastern corner of Iowa in a town called Cresco. His family had a 40-hectare(公顷)farm on which they grew wheat, maize(玉米)and hay and raised pigs and cattle. Norman spent most of his time from age 7-17 on the farm, even as he attended a one-room, one-teacher school at New Oregon in Howard County.
Borlaug didn’t have money to go to college. But through a Great Depression era programme, known as the National Youth Administration, Borlaug was able to enroll in the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis to study forestry. He excelled in studies and received his Ph. D. in plant pathology(病理学)and genetics in 1942.
From 1942 to 1944, Borlaug was employed as a microbiologist at DuPont in Wilmington. However, following the December 7,1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Borlaug tried to join the military, but was rejected under wartime labour regulations.
In Mexico
In 1944, many experts warned of mass starvation in developing nations where populations were expanding faster than crop production. Borlaug began work at a Rockefeller Foundation-funded project in Mexico to increase wheat production by developing higher-yielding varieties of the crop. It involved research in genetics, plant breeding, plant pathology, entomology(昆虫学), agronomy(农艺学), soil science, and cereal technology. The goal of the project was to boost wheat production in Mexico, which at the time was importing a large portion of its grain.
Borlaug said that his first couple of years in Mexico were difficult. He lacked trained scientists and equipment. Native farmers were hostile towards the wheat programme because of serious crop losses from 1939 to 1941 due to stem rust.
Wheat varieties that Borlaug worked with had tall, thin stalks. While taller wheat competed better for sunlight, they had a tendency to collapse under the weight of extra grain a trait called lodging. To overcome this, Borlaug worked on breeding wheat with shorter and stronger stalks, which could hold on larger seed heads. Borlaug’s new semi-dwarf, disease-resistant varieties, called Pitic 62 and Penjamo 62, changed the potential yield of Mexican wheat dramatically. By 1963 wheat production in Mexico stood six times more than that of 1944.
Green Revolution in India
During the 1960s, South Asia experienced severe drought condition and India had been importing wheat on a large scale from the United States. Borlaug came to India in 1963 along with Dr. Robert Anderson to duplicate his Mexican success in the sub-continent. The experiments began with planting a few of the high-yielding variety strains in the fields of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa in New Delhi, under the supervision of Dr. M. S. Swaminathan. These strains were subsequently planted in test plots at Ludhiana, Pantnagar, Kanpur, Pune and Indore. The results were promising, but large-scale success, however, was not instant. Cultural opposition to new agricultural techniques initially prevented Borlaug from going ahead with planting of new wheat strains in India. By 1965, when the drought situation turned alarming, the Government took the lead and allowed wheat revolution to move forward. By employing agricultural techniques he developed in Mexico, Borlaug was able to nearly double South Asian wheat harvests between 1965 and 1970.
India subsequently made a huge commitment to Mexican wheat, importing some 18 000 tonnes of seed. By 1968, it was clear that the Indian wheat harvest was nothing short of revolutionary. It was so productive that there was a shortage of labour to harvest it, of bull carts to haul it to the threshing floor(打谷场), of jute(黄麻)bags to store it. Local governments in some areas were forced to shut down schools temporarily to use them as store houses.
United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO)observed that in 40 years between 1961 and 2001, "India more than doubled its population, from 452 million to more than 1 billion. At the same time, it nearly tripled its grain production from 87 million tonnes to 231 million tonnes. It accomplished this feat while increasing cultivated grain acreage(土地面积)a mere 8 percent. "
It was in India that Norman Borlaug’s work was described as the ’Green Revolution. ’
In Africa
Africa suffered widespread hunger and starvation through the 70s and 80s. Food and aid poured in from most developed countries into the continent, but thanks to the absence of efficient distribution system, the hungry remained empty-stomach. The then Chairman of the Nippon Foundation, Ryoichi Sasakawa wondered why the methods used in Mexico and India were not extended to Africa. He called up Norman Borlaug, now leading a semi-retired life, for help. He managed to convince Borlaug to help with his new effort and subsequently founded the Sasakawa Africa Association. Borlaug later recalled, "but after I saw the terrible circumstances there, I said, ’Let’s just start growing’".
The success in Africa was not as spectacular as it was in India or Mexico. Those elements that allowed Borlaug’s projects to succeed, such as well-organized economies and transportation and irrigation systems, were severely lacking throughout Africa. Because of this, Borlaug’s initial projects were restricted to developed regions of the continent. Nevertheless, yields of maize, sorghum(高梁)and wheat doubled between 1983 and 1985.
Nobel Prize
For his contributions to the world food supply, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Norwegian officials notified his wife in Mexico City at 4:00 a. m. , but Borlaug had already left for the test fields in the Toluca valley, about 65 km west of Mexico City. A chauffeur(司机)took her to the fields to inform her husband. In his acceptance speech, Borlaug siad, "the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world. Yet, 50 percent of the world population goes hungry."
Green Revolution vs Environmentalists
Borlaug’s advocacy of intensive high-yield agriculture came under severe criticism from environmentalists in recent years. His work faced environmental and socio-economic criticisms, including charges that his methods have created dependence on monoculture crops, unsustainable farming practices, heavy indebtedness among subsistence farmers, and high levels of cancer among those who work with agriculture chemicals. There are also concerns about the long-term sustainability of farming practices encouraged by the Green Revolution in both the developed and the developing world.
In India, the Green Revolution is blamed for the destruction of Indian crop diversity, drought vulnerability, dependence on agro-chemicals that poison soils but reap large-scale benefits mostly to the American multi-national corporations. What these critics overwhelmingly advocate is a global movement towards "organic"or "sustainable" farming practices that avoid using chemicals and high technology in favour of natural fertilizers, cultivation and pest-control programmes.
How did Borlaug’s wheat programme go during his first couple of years in Mexico?
选项
A、It met with resistance.
B、It was well received.
C、It achieved unexpected progress.
D、It succeeded though with difficulty.
答案
A
解析
纽节推断题。定位句明确表示,Borlaug在墨西哥的前两年十分艰难,第三句又进一步说明,受1939年到1941年间秆锈病的影响,当地的农民敌视他的小麦项目。选项中的resistance与原文中的hostile表述一致,因此,可以推断出Borlaug的小麦项目在墨西哥的前两年中遇到了很大的阻力。故A)为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/f897777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Everyonehasamomentinhistory,whichbelongsparticularlytohim.Itisthemomentwhenhisemotionsachievetheirmostpower
Itdoesn’tcomeasasurprisetoyoutorealizethatitmakesnodifferencewhatyoureadorstudyifyoucan’trememberit.You
A、Uninterested.B、Apologetic.C、Sick.D、Annoyed.D推理题目有一定的难度,需要综合会话的内容,尤其是Professor的话,然后再做出判断。
Interpersonalcommunicationisyourinteractionwithothers.Talkingtoafriendoncampus,chattingtoa(n)【C1】______friendon
A、Alittlegirl.B、Alittleboy.C、Asecretary.D、Adog.D选项表明,本题考查人物身份。由短文中提到butinfactAllanisadog可知,答案为[D]。
A、Buses.B、Bicycles.C、Showers.D、Schools.C选项都是名词,和设施、交通工具有关。本题是细节题,从therearealmostalwaysconvenienceslikeshowers...可以得知正
A、Ithasattractedworldwideattention.B、Itcanhelpsolveglobalfoodcrises.C、Itwillchangetheconceptoffood.D、Itwill
Painting,theexecutionofformsandshapesonasurfacebymeansofpigment,hasbeencontinuouslypracticedbyhumansforsome
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteashortessayentitledOnDialectalTVPrograms.Youshouldwriteatleast15
A、Nineteenth-centuryseacaptains.B、Thedevelopmentofthesteamship.C、Theeconomicimportanceofsailingships.D、Employment
随机试题
A、Freshmeat.B、Freshfruit.C、Biscuit.D、Chocolate.B原文提到,只有新鲜蔬菜和水果通常是不需要包装的,所以选B。这道题符合“听到什么就选什么”的原则。如果听到的不只一项,则需要在旁边做笔记来帮助判断。听
固体催化剂使用载体的目的在于使活性组分有高度的分散性,增加催化剂与反应物的接触面积。
外科治疗门静脉高压症最主要的目的是
奶牛,3岁,采食饲料后不久突然出现不安,回头顾腹,左侧腹部明显增大,叩诊鼓音区增大,呼吸困难。则关于该患牛说法正确的是
肠风脏毒下血,治疗宜选用的方剂是
某公司2009年7月发生以下业务:(1)出租房屋取得租金收入10万元;(2)派本单位员工赴境外为境外企业提供劳务服务,取得收入15万元;(3)将自产成本为30万元、市价为45万元的商品投资人股某贸易公司,评估价为40万元:
对联要求()。这些特点都和律诗有某些相似之处,所以有人把对联称为张贴的诗。
Thepurposeoflifelongemploymentisto______.Bytrainingitsemployees,acompanycanmakethem______.
A、Iamalone.B、Fine,thanks.C、Whataboutyou?D、It’slate.B本题考查的是对问候语的回答。Howareyou?/How’sitgoing?/Howareyougettingalo
TheSixthSenseWhenyouwereachild,didyoueverwonderhowyourmotherknewwhenyouwerewritingonthewallwithcrayo
最新回复
(
0
)