s******n
发帖数: 518 | 1 https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/24/archives/us-crop-experts-praise-chinas-
achievements-in-growing-food-china.html
About the Archive
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive,
before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles
as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or
other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.
HONG KONG, Sept. 23—China's achievements in efforts to increase food
production received glowing praise today from a group of American plant
scientists after a four﹚eek tour of research institutions and communes.
“You had to look hard to find a bad field,” said Dr. Norman E. Borlaug,
the plant breeder who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. “Everything was
green and nice everywhere we traveled.”
The scientists found their hosts extremely reticent when asked for crop
estimates but came,awawith a general impression f at the crop about to teat
be harvesl ed was exceptionally good, possibly far the best China has known,
Their impression has weight, for the 10 scientists who made up the
delegation are experienced crop observers with wide experience in Asia.
“The rice crop was really first﹔ate,” said Dr. Sterling Wortman, a vice
president of the Rockefeller Foundation and leader of the delegation. “
There was just field after field that was as good as anything you can see.”
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Strikingly absent in China were the stark contrasts between modern and
ancient farming practices that typify the most successful farming regions in
South Asia and Southeast Asia, the scientist said in an interview.
“They're all being brought up to the level of skills of the best people,”
he said. “They all share the available inputs.” The delegation came away
with “half a trunk full” of samples of Chinese plant varieties, Dr,
Wortman said, including 30 to 35 varieties of rice seed.
Thanks for reading The Times.
Subscribe to the Times
Plant geneticists have long been eager to have access to plant materials
from China. The delegation, which was sponsored by the Committee on
Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, left with the
hope that its visit would open the way to regular exchanges,
Dr. Wortman said he was surprised by the strides the Chinese had made in
breeding and disseminating new varieties of dwarf rice similar to the “
miracle rice” developed at the International Rice Research Institute in Los
Banos, the Philippines. The director of the institute, Dr. Nyle C. Brady,
was a member of the delegation.
China Got Rice Samples
Plant scientists at the Grain Crops Research Institute near Canton told the
visitors that they had procured samples of varieties developed at the Rice
Institute as early as 1967, which is when those varieties were starting to
come into general use in Southeast Asia.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
But the Americans were re gularly told that the varieties developed in the
Philippines had proved to have a growing season 20 to 30 days too long for
China's conditions. The varieties the Americans found in widespread use
seemed to have been locally developed.
The American scientists came closest to voicing a reservation about Chinese
agricultural efforts when they discussed their visits to research institutes
. The researchers themselves had been sent to labor in the fields in large
numbers in recent years, with the result that work in the laboratories
appeared to be suffering some neglect.
The visitors applauded the emphasis on practical application of scientific
findings.
Dr. Borlaug contrasted the situation with that in India where laboratory
work is extremely sophisticated —. far more so than China, he﹕aid —but
application lags.
The Americans said it was clear that Chinese agriculture, to maintain its
momentum, would need scientists and other technicians in much greater
numbers than were being trained now.
Chinese scientists seemed out of touch, they said, with a number of
innovations involving nutrition and resistance to disease, worms and insects.
Dr. Borlaugh said he felt that India and other Asian countries had a great
deal to learn from China, “I felt the progress had been much more
remarkable than what I expected,” he said.
China reports self﹕ufficiency in food but has issued no detailed crop
reports for a number of years. Last year Peking said that the output of
grains in China was more than 250 million metric tons. But the country
remained the largest importer of wheat and chemical fertilizers in the world
. China's imports of grain this year are expected to surpass eight million
metric tons. |
|
