Plows & Sacred Cows

Dr. Henry Garland Bennett, president of Oklahoma A & M and new chief of the Government's Point Four ("Technical Assistance") Program, gave an example last week of how Point Four could help the world's less fortunate people.

Two years ago, said Agriculturist Bennett, a former county agent from North Carolina named Horace Holmes went to India as an adviser on village improvement to the Indian government. He was sent to a bedraggled northern section of the country, where he concentrated on 100 square miles near Mahwa in the United Provinces.

The prospects at Mahwa were unpromising. Most of the people were illiterate, half-starved, infested with disease and parasites. The ill-cultivated land swarmed with sacred cows, which were allowed to wander unchecked, competing with the people for the meager crops.

Cautious Start. Holmes did not make the mistake of molesting the sacred cows. He knew he would be licked before he started if he meddled openly in religious matters. "In any of the foreign countries," he said, "we are apt to make the mistake of attempting to Americanize the people. They do not necessarily want to be Americans, nor do they need to be." Holmes let the sacred cows alone, but he eventually tricked them without sacrilege by introducing legume crops that they would not eat.

Carefully avoiding taboos and deeply rooted customs, Holmes succeeded in getting some of the farmers to plant a new kind of Indian wheat (Punjab 591). In the first season it yielded 43% more than the old-style wheat. Next year Punjab 591 was planted by entire villages, and even spread outside the experimental area. The increase went up to 63% when Holmes showed the farmers how to rotate their wheat with soil-improving legumes. With potatoes Holmes had the same success. A new variety increased the yield 112%.

Simple Tools. After Holmes had won the farmers' confidence, he took the next step: teaching them how to use improved, but still simple toolse.g., turning plows and five-tooth cultivators. A simple form of thresher introduced by Holmes made it possible for his farmers to thresh their wheat crops in three days instead of ten. The seven days saved allowed many farmers to plow their land for the next crop before the soil under the wheat stubble got too hard.

Becoming more daring, Holmes persuaded the farmers, a few at a time, to use a little fertilizer, grow improved vegetables, kill insects with DDT. Even the sacred cows got some benefits. When Holmes arrived in the district, he found plenty of rinderpest and other cattle diseases. The government already provided veterinary services, but the suspicious farmers hid their cattle rather than allow them to be immunized. Holmes set up village schools that taught the advantages of immunization. Last year not a cow in the district died of rinderpest.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.