http://bifurcatedcarrots.eu/2009/09/hero-or-villain/ Heirloom gardening and the lives of Pat 'n' Steph Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:50:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://bifurcatedcarrots.eu/2009/09/hero-or-villain/comment-page-1/#comment-46373 Leigh Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:45:53 +0000 http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/?p=1808#comment-46373 I don't know - at a gut level I come down on the villain side, though that may not be fair. Any mention of "the Green Revolution" always makes me cringe and reminds me of a Reagan-era story. As part of the "Green Revolution", hybrid corn seed was distributed to indigenous farmers in Nicaragua, and at the same time their own land races collected and deposited in the US National Seed Storage Laboratory (USDA). By the time the Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua, the farmers were quite disillusioned with the hybrid corn, and wanted to go back to their old varieties, but they had lost them. A request was made to the US to get samples of their varieties back so they could re-establish them. The request was denied because of Reagan's trade embargo on Nicaragua... I don’t know – at a gut level I come down on the villain side, though that may not be fair. Any mention of “the Green Revolution” always makes me cringe and reminds me of a Reagan-era story. As part of the “Green Revolution”, hybrid corn seed was distributed to indigenous farmers in Nicaragua, and at the same time their own land races collected and deposited in the US National Seed Storage Laboratory (USDA). By the time the Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua, the farmers were quite disillusioned with the hybrid corn, and wanted to go back to their old varieties, but they had lost them. A request was made to the US to get samples of their varieties back so they could re-establish them. The request was denied because of Reagan’s trade embargo on Nicaragua…

]]> http://bifurcatedcarrots.eu/2009/09/hero-or-villain/comment-page-1/#comment-44818 tai haku Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:01:36 +0000 http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/?p=1808#comment-44818 I think, based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the area, it would be tremendously harsh to label Borlaug anything other than a hero. At the end of the day, the immunity-carrying seed he produced saved millions. Whilst he may well have worked with industrial agriculture, its hard to see how else the Borlaug seeds could have been provided to the masses at the time in question. I think, based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the area, it would be tremendously harsh to label Borlaug anything other than a hero. At the end of the day, the immunity-carrying seed he produced saved millions. Whilst he may well have worked with industrial agriculture, its hard to see how else the Borlaug seeds could have been provided to the masses at the time in question.

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