Wheat America and World War II

 Wheat America and World War II

Wheat America and World War II

Zbinski says the United States entered World War II in 1941 after Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war on the United States. For North America's wheat fields, the war in Europe meant that the United States and Canada now had a market for whatever wheat was produced. Those wheat fields were helping not only the American people but also Britain, the Soviet Union and China along with the American army.

As a result, Zbinsky says, the United States, Canada and Australia's supply of wheat to war-torn European countries pushed the sector out of the Great Depression. "During World War II, the production of a farm in the United States increased by 150%.

The steady increase in food production since the 1940s has made US food exports an important part of global food security.

Zbinsky writes that the United States realized that in addition to military might, economic development of underdeveloped countries was necessary to compete with communism. She says an example of the use of wheat to launch world peace efforts came from a US effort in Mexico aimed at "making Mexico self-sufficient in food production.

Norman Borg was selected for the job, whose first job was to produce wheat seeds that would protect him from disease in Mexico. He succeeded in that. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

But on the one hand, if Norman's wheat variety produced higher yields, on the other hand, they led to large-scale production of wheat for commercial purposes, which greatly harmed the small or ordinary farmer who He used to produce wheat for his needs.

"For many, the story of the Green Revolution is not a success story but a massive farming on the strength of capital that has destroyed the traditional way of life of many. Small landowners disappeared, a city like Mexico City was filled with newcomers, and large numbers of people were forced to move to the United States.

"The demise of the family farm and the village was painful for many. But it also set people free to find a way out of the fields. For some, living in cities and earning money was attractive. ”But she says it was good for a strong economy like the United States, but in other countries, expensive fertilizers and water and mechanized farming meant more jobs. It's over. '

Japan wheat seed solves fertilizer problem

Japan  wheat seed solves fertilizer problem

After World War II, when arms production declined, the question arose as to whether to use surplus or excess ammonium nitrate. Zbinsky writes that it has now become a low cost chemical fertilizer. But there was also a problem, and that was that in the case of more grains of wheat, its twig could bend under their weight and in that case it would be difficult to pick it. "It simply came to our notice then that over-fertilization could actually reduce yields."

The solution to this problem is to turn the story towards Japan. "Wheat came there from China at least 200 BC," writes Zbinsky. Farmers in Japan have long been cultivating rice and wheat in the same field, and they have the wheat seed that The twig was not very high and therefore it was less likely to bend under the weight of the grain. The seed was Noreen 10, which came to the United States from Japan in 1946.

The burden of humanity on wheat

But Zbinsky also sees a ray of hope in the wheat story. "Then came a time when, instead of using the politics of food to help one's army and starve the enemy, one began to consider how it could be used to avoid war."

After World War II, the United Nations stated in 1945 that food and hunger are the responsibility of every country, everywhere."

Wheat is under increasing pressure to produce food for all humanity and animals. In 2019, wheat was cultivated on 538 million acres of land. The average farm size in the United States is 400 acres, and in Europe it is 40 acres. But worldwide, more than half of the calorie requirement is met by a field of 12 acres or less.

By 2050, our population is expected to exceed nine billion," she wrote.

They have a hope in technology. "We completed human fetal scavenging in 2003 and wheat seed scavenging was mostly completed in 2018," he said. Both projects are the result of years of hard work and funding from large teams of experts.

The reward for success in understanding the human genome was the hope of getting rid of inherited diseases.

Zbinsky says that not every disease has been cured yet, but in the process, an understanding of the technique for working on such various projects has certainly been gained. Where man fought wars for food, he is now working together to meet his needs.

Success in understanding the wheat genome was the result of the efforts of 73 teams from 20 countries, she writes.