Dwarf wheat

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy

BBC

Business

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2019

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Population Bomb, published by Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich in 1968, predicted that populations would grow more quickly than food supplies, causing mass starvation. Ehrlich was wrong: food supplies kept pace. And that’s largely due to the years Norman Borlaug spent growing different strains of wheat in Mexico. The 'green revolution' vastly increased yields of wheat, corn and rice. Yet, as Tim Harford describes, worries about overpopulation continue. The world’s population is still growing, and food yields are now increasing more slowly – partly due to environmental problems the green revolution itself made worse. Will new technologies come to the rescue?

Transcript

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0:00.0	50 Things That Made The Modern Economy
0:09.0	With Tim Harford
0:15.0	In the early 1900s, newlyweds, Kathy and Kathy Jones
0:19.0	left Connecticut to start a new life as farmers in Northwest Mexico's Yaki Valley.
0:27.0	It was a little known place, a few hundred kilometres south of the border with Arizona.
0:36.0	Dry, dusty and largely destitute.
0:40.0	But for the Joneses, it became home. They raised two daughters.
0:45.0	When Kathy died in 1931, Kathy decided to stay on.
0:52.0	Just down the road, the state's ambitious governor set up an agricultural research centre,
0:57.0	the Yaki Valley Experiment Station.
1:01.0	Impressive stone pillars went up at the entrance. Irrigation canals were dug.
1:06.0	For a while, the centre raised cattle, sheep and pigs.
1:10.0	It grew oranges, figs and grapefruit.
1:13.0	And then it fell into disuse.
1:16.0	By 1945, the fields were overgrown, the fences fallen, the buildings windows shattered and roof tiles missing.
1:24.0	The place was infested with rats.
1:27.0	But then, Kathy heard strange rumors.
1:31.0	Some crazy gringo had set up camp in this dilapidated place,
1:36.0	despite the lack of electricity or sanitation or running water.
1:41.0	And he hadn't brought machinery. He'd been digging with a hoe.
1:47.0	Kathy drove over to investigate.
1:50.0	She learned that the young man was from Iowa, and he was working for the Rockefeller Foundation,
	...

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