G.W. Carver rooted in sustainable agriculture
Measure me not by the heights to which I have climbed but the depth from which I have come. By Dennis Keeney Center director I jogged across the lush green Simpson College campus in Indianola this spring. My run took me past Carver Science Hall, and I reflected on my "spring of George Washington Carver." It began with morning runs during meetings at Tuskegee Institute with the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology/Kellogg Foundation- sponsored "Conversations on Change" program-a workshop that truly evoked the spirit of Tuskegee and of Carver. The season continued with many runs past Carver Hall on the beautiful Iowa State University campus, and came together with the triad run at Simpson. All three campuses were instrumental to Carver's development. Simpson was his first institution of higher learning, one that accepted him for what he was, a curious, brilliant man yearning for knowledge. There he became aware that the arts, his first love, were not the best way to serve his fellow southern blacks. At the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, his curiosity about the natural world was further set afire; here is where science became open to him and he became aware of the power and necessity of science to address the problems of the agricultural South in the early 1900s. We tend to eulogize Carver for his race, his humble beginnings, and his ability to apply science to daily observations, and of course, for his development of uses and markets for the peanut. Henry C. Wallace once said of Carver, "He had a creative urge and a sense of destiny that would not let him rest. His creative urge must serve the people who needed it most." Thus, it was that Carver chose the fork in the road which took him to Tuskegee, at the request of Booker T. Washington, to establish an agricultural school. It was a hard move for him, a change in cultures and a marked decline in quality of facilities. Tuskegee presented many challenges for Carver-difficulties with President Washington, administrative challenges for a man who simply did not regard administration as an activity worthy of his time, low pay and consistently low-quality facilities. But Carver's motives were pure; he considered the post his "mission field" where he would work on agricultural research of use to the "man fartherest down." Carver learned that Southern farmers, regardless of race, suffered from even more problems than their Northern counterparts. Trapped in grinding poverty, bound to a monoculture of cotton that exhausted the fragile southern soil and whose market was controlled by external forces, the Southern farmer was a marginal producer on marginal land. While slavery was no longer the law of the South, economic rules held farmers in bondage as much as if they were slaves. The only source of increased income was to plant more cotton at less profit per acre. Carver wrote in The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South: The virgin fertility of our soils and the vast amount of unskilled labor have been more of a curse rather than a blessing to agriculture. This exhaustive system for cultivation, the destruction of forests, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic matter, have made our agricultural problem one requiring more brains than of the North, East or West. Denied Hatch Act funds from the federal government, Carver was forced to conduct research and demonstration programs on budgets that were incredibly modest, even in those days. This turned out to be a blessing. Tuskegee became a "little man's experiment station" and provided information that required hard work and the wise use of resources rather than expensive implements and fertilizers. This pegs him as one of the first true sustainable agriculture educators and researchers. He worked on improving soils, growing crops with low inputs, and using species that fixed nitrogen (hence, the work on the cowpea and the peanut). He emphasized providing information farmers need presented at the level they could use. The institute bulletins (a concept he brought with him from his experiences at Iowa State) were free, and written in a way that told in simple terms how to grow, manage and utilize a crop while building soil fertility. He was a strong proponent of organic fertilization, and demonstrated that organic techniques required fewer inputs and produced more profits than conventional methods of cotton production. The same was shown for alfalfa and soybeans. His success as a powerful teacher and role model for his students is considered to outstrip that of his work in support of product development. Carver recognized early on that the Southern farmer must improve his net worth, not that of the state or of the industry, if he were to advance. He developed ways to use farmer labor and retain its value on the farm and in the community, while also continuing to grow cash-producing crops, in particular cotton. He explored ways farmers could grow more of their own food, feed themselves more nutritiously and become more self-sufficient. By the early 1920s, the boll weevil had laid waste to much of the cotton crop and demonstrated to the South the necessity of agricultural diversity in crops. Carver also spent much time and energy on finding commercial uses for the many products of the land, for instance, paint pigments from the plentiful Southern clays. Carver advanced the South in many ways. He made education widely available at a low cost, developed agricultural technologies that were easy on the environment and retained their value in the community, and paid attention to the nutritional value of the foods he produced. He worked against the forces of new technologies that were operating to remove the small farmer from American agriculture. He worked to improve the quality of life for the black farmer. Had the political system of the times recognized his efforts and provided financial resources, the South and all of American agriculture today might be far more sustainable. Carver was a true sustainable agriculture proponent. Carver worried about his people first and foremost, and worked to develop methods to make their farming profitable. This is a vision fitting for today's land grant colleges as they try to understand the greatness of this man. Carver brought a better life to those he met, and what greater legacy can he leave? More information about George Washington Carver Return to the Fall 1998 Leopold Letter Index
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