Borlaug’s grand scheme for the campaigns was what he called the “Kick-Off Approach,” which he based on outright rejection of the hypothesis that agricultural development of necessity has to be slow. His Kick-Off Approach was founded on manipulating three factors—technical, psychological and economic— in such a way as to achieve rapid results. The technical factor had already been proved to his satisfaction in the results of the field trials. He now had to work on the psychological and economic factors to get the required policy changes.

Due to drought, late sowing and poor germination, India’s spring harvest in 1966 from approximately three thousand hectares sown to Mexican wheat varieties, in half-acre plots on thousands of farms, produced mixed results. Many were good; a few were excellent. Borlaug, ever the optimist, said, “With superb handling of supplementary topdressing with nitrogen fertilizer and timely application of irrigation, the seedlings tillered profusely.” And indeed in many locations yields were much better than any that had previously been recorded in India. Norm said, “The Lady of Serendip had smiled upon us, there was widespread enthusiasm, and euphoria reigned in a few locations.”

At the time, the drought and famine were at their worst in northeast India, especially in Bihar and West Bengal.

Under these dismal conditions, Minister of Food and Agriculture Subramaniam made a courageous and historic decision. Against the advice of several of his senior scientists, he decided to import eighteen thousand tons of the short-strawed, highyielding Lerma Rojo 64 seed from Mexico.

About the large import of seed, Norm says, “It unleashed a flood of criticism, because of the risks involved, from many academicians in ivory halls in affluent countries from around the world. Shri Subramaniam and I were charged by some critics with recklessly and irresponsibly playing with the lives of millions of people.”

In the fall of 1966, approximately 240,000 hectares were planted with seed of Mexican varieties. Before the  plantings were made, a great controversy developed, with the economists from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Planning Commission, and the Rockefeller Foundation, including heavyweight David Hopper, on one side of the issue and Borlaug and Glenn Anderson on the other.

Norm recalls, “The economists insisted that we should cut back the fertilizer application from 120-40-0 kilograms per hectare of nutrients to 40-20-0 so that three times more area and families could share the benefit of fertilizer. We argued loudly and heatedly that this scale-back in fertilizer recommendations was premature, for we had not yet overcome the skepticism and psychological barrier of the traditionalists, peasant farmers, bureaucrats and senior scientists. At one point, the debate became both emotional and heated. With the diplomacy of Dr. Ralph Cummings, head of the Rockefeller Foundation team in India, we finally calmed down. We stood our ground and won the argument and the heavy rate of fertilizer was applied on 240,000 hectares.” The dramatic results vindicated Borlaug and Anderson. The Mexican seeds were the catalyst. Fertilizer was the fuel. [...]

Borlaug informed those present of the outstanding success of the wheat campaign and the enthusiasm of the farmers for the new wheats and the associated package of production technology. He closed by saying that if the government of India now would adopt an economic policy that would stimulate the adoption of the new technology, it could trigger a revolution in wheat production.

Borlaug indicated that government action was needed to assure

1. the availability of the right kind of fertilizer at reasonable prices at the village level six weeks before the onset of the planting season; 
2. credit for the farmers to purchase fertilizer and seed before planting, to be paid back at harvest; and
3. an announcement before the initiation of the planting season that, at harvest, farmers would receive a fair price for their grain. 

He said the price should be similar to that of the international market rather than only half that price, as had prevailed for decades under the cheap food price policies that had prevailed since India’s independence. [...]

Norm left for Mexico four hours after the meeting. Two weeks later he received from offices of the Rockefeller and Ford foundations in New Delhi a series of clippings dated April 1st from all the major New Delhi newspapers. The clippings disclosed a drastic change in policies on fertilizer on two fronts: the government would begin to increase fertilizer imports for the short-term and would embark on a dynamic program to expand domestic fertilizer production. The subsequent increases in availability and use of fertilizer contributed to dramatic increases in food production.

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The Man Who Fed the World is copyright © 2006, Leon Hesser.
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