| The
green revolution is a change in the right direction, but
it has not transformed the world into Utopia. None are
more keenly aware of its limitations than those who started
it and fought for its success. But there has been solid
accomplishment, as I have already shown by concrete examples.
I have also tried to indicate the various opportunities
for capitalizing more fully on the new materials that
were produced and the new methods that were devised. And,
above all, I cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that
further progress depends on intelligent, integrated, and
persistent effort by government leaders, statesmen, tradesmen,
scientists, educators, and communication agencies, including
the press, radio, and television. |
|
| But
progress is continuous, and we can and must make continuous
progress. Better varieties of wheat and other cereals
with not only higher yield potential but also with higher
content of protein are already in the process of creation. |
|
| We
need also to explore more fully the feasibility of producing
new manmade cereal species with greater production potential
and better nutritional quality than those now in existence.
Triticale, a man-made species, derived from a cross between
wheat and rye, now shows promise of becoming such a crop. |
|
| During
the past six years, the International Corn and Wheat Center
in Mexico, cooperating with the University of Manitoba,
has developed a large breeding program to improve Triticale.
Within the past three years we have developed highly fertile
lines, and the results up to the present indicate the
possibility of combining the desirable characteristics
now present in different lines into a single line, thereby
creating a new kind of cereal that is superior to wheat
in productivity and nutritional quality. |
|
| The
rapid progress achieved in Triticale improvement suggests
the desirability of initiating basic studies to determine
the feasibility of developing other cereal species from
wide crosses between different existing species or their
wild relatives. Recent improvements in individual cell,
tissue and embryo-culture techniques, in the development
of culture media with additions of hormones and nutrients
that foster cell and tissue differentiations, in achieving
hybridization between somatic cells, and in the methods
of inducing polyploidy and mutations, offer many fascinating
possibilities of achieving crosses between species that
were formerly uncrossable. Even the possibility of using
protoplasmic and cell hybridization, followed by manipulation
to promote cell differentiation for plant improvement,
appears to be nearer. |
|
| I
propose therefore that a bold program of wide crosses
be initiated to improve both cereals and legumes (pulses).
It should include attempts to make numerous intergeneric
crosses among cereals, employing all of the modern techniques
to consummate fertilization, and propagate the hybrids.
If a series of new combinations can be made and doubled,
as, for example, between maize and sorghum, wheat and
barley, or wheat and rice, it would open the door to the
possibilities for vast subsequent improvement by conventional
methods. |
|
| Unfortunately,
all cereals are deficient in one or more of the essential
amino acids, especially lysine, which is essential for
normal body growth and for the maintenance of health.
Protein malnutrition is widespread, especially among children,
and many of its victims die or are maimed both physically
and mentally for life. |
|
| Although
food supplements can alleviate this situation, the development
of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains that have
high levels of protein and better amino acid balance would
be the ideal solution, since this would not involve added
expense or special educational efforts, and there are
good possibilities of producing them. The now famous opaque-2
gene in maize doubles the production of the amino acid
lysine which is essential to growth and health in man
and many other animals. Similarly, an Ethiopian strain
of barley, and some lines of Triticale have genes for
extraordinary production of essential nutrient materials.
Plant breeders are trying to combine such genes with the
best genes now available for productivity and other desirable
characters, thus increasing not only the tonnage of food,
but also its essential nutrient quality. As we are now
striving to emancipate ourselves from dependence on artificial
food supplements, I have a dream that we can likewise
emancipate ourselves to some extent from our dependence
on artificial nutrients for the cereal plants themselves,
thus lightening the financial burden that now oppresses
the small farmer and handicaps his efforts to participate
fully in the new technologies. |
|
| In
my dream I see green, vigorous, high-yielding fields of
wheat, rice, maize, sorghums, and millets, which are obtaining,
free of expense, 100 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare
from nodule-forming, nitrogen-fixing bacteria. These mutant
strains of Rhizobium cerealis were developed in 1990 by
a massive mutation breeding program with strains of Rhizobium
sp. obtained from roots of legumes and other nodule-bearing
plants. This scientific discovery has revolutionized agricultural
production for the hundreds of millions of humble farmers
throughout the world; for they now receive much of the
needed fertilizer for their crops directly from these
little wondrous microbes that are taking nitrogen from
the air and fixing it without cost in the roots of cereals,
from which it is transformed into grain... |
|
| Then
I wake up and become disillusioned to find that mutation
genetics programs are still engaged mostly in such minutiae
as putting beards on wheat plants and taking off the hairs. |
|
| If
we are to capitalize fully on the past biological accomplishments
and realize the prospective accomplishments, as exemplified
in my dream, there must be far greater investments in
research and education in the future than in the past. |
|
Few
investments, if any, can match the economic and social
returns from the wheat research in Mexico. The investment
from 1943 to 1964 was estimated to have yielded an annual
return of 750 percent. This study was made prior to the
full impact of dwarf wheat on the national production.
If the benefits were calculated now, with the inclusion
of the returns from the increased wheat production in
Pakistan, India, and other Asian and African countries,
they would be fantastically high.
Nevertheless, vast sums are now being spent in all countries,
developed and developing, on armaments and new nuclear
and other lethal weapons, while pitifully small sums are
being spent on agricultural research and education designed
to sustain and humanize life rather than to degrade and
destroy it. |
|
| The
green revolution has won a temporary success in man's
war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a
breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution
can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the
next three decades. But the frightening power of human
reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success
of the green revolution will be ephemeral only. |
|
| Most
people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace
of the "Population Monster". In the beginning
there were but two, Adam and Eve. When they appeared on
this earth is still questionable. By the time of Christ,
world population had probably reached 250 million. But
between then and now, population has grown to 3.5 billion.
Growth has been especially fast since the advent of modern
medicine. If it continues to increase at the estimated
present rate of two percent a year, the world population
will reach 6.5 billion by the year 2000. Currently, with
each second, or tick of the clock, about 2.2 additional
people are added to the world population. The rhythm of
increase will accelerate to 2.7, 3.3, and 4.0 for each
tick of the clock by 1980, 1990, and 2000, respectively,
unless man becomes more realistic and preoccupied about
this impending doom. The ticktock of the clock will continually
grow louder and more menacing each decade. Where will
it all end? |
|
| Malthus
signaled the danger a century and a half ago. But he emphasized
principally the danger that population would increase
faster than food supplies. In his time he could not foresee
the tremendous increase in man's food production potential.
Nor could he have foreseen the disturbing and destructive
physical and mental consequences of the grotesque concentration
of human beings into the poisoned and clangorous environment
of pathologically hypertrophied megalopoles. Can human
beings endure the strain? Abnormal stresses and strains
tend to accentuate man's animal instincts and provoke
irrational and socially disruptive behavior among the
less stable individuals in the maddening crowd. |
|
| We
must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the
first requisite for life. For a decent and humane life
we must also provide an opportunity for good education,
remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing,
and effective and compassionate medical care. Unless we
can do this, man may degenerate sooner from environmental
diseases than from hunger. |
|
| And
yet, I am optimistic for the future of mankind, for in
all biological populations there are innate devices to
adjust population growth to the carrying capacity of the
environment. Undoubtedly, some such device exists in man,
presumably Homo sapiens, but so far it has not asserted
itself to bring into balance population growth and the
carrying capacity of the environment on a worldwide scale.
It would be disastrous for the species to continue to
increase our human numbers madly until such innate devices
take over. It is a test of the validity of sapiens as
a species epithet. |
|
| Since
man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident
that within the next two decades he will recognize the
self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible
population growth and will adjust the growth rate to levels
which will permit a decent standard of living for all
mankind. If man is wise enough to make this decision and
if all nations abandon their idolatry of Ares, Mars, and
Thor, then Mankind itself should be the recipient of a
Nobel Peace Prize which is "to be awarded to the
person who has done most to promote brotherhood among
the nations". |
|
| Then,
by developing and applying the scientific and technological
skills of the twentieth century for "the well-being
of mankind throughout the world", he may still see
Isaiah's prophesies come true: "... And the desert
shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose... And the parched
ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs
of water..."7 |
|
| And
may these words come true! |
|
| *
The laureate delivered this lecture in the auditorium
of the Nobel Institute. The text, which in actual delivery
was considerably shortened, is taken from Les Prix Nobel
en 1970. |
|
| 1.
In what is now West Iran. |
|
| 2.
Amos 4:9. |
|
| 3.
Joel 1:17, 20. |
|
| 4.
Genesis 41:54. |
|
| 5.
Isaiah 8:21. |
|
| 6.
Lord John Boyd Orr (1880-1971), recipient of the Nobel
Peace Prize for 1949. |
|
| 7.
Isaiah 35:1, 7. |
|
| From
Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Elsevier Publishing Company,
Amsterdam |
|
