The farming genius who fed a billion people

Steve Forbes on farming innovator Norman Borlaug, developer of high-yield crops that saved millions from starvation.
#wheat #plants #geneticengineering #selectivebreeding #biology #hybrid #universityofminnesota #mexico #dupont #hunger #famine
Producer/Writer/Series Creator - Elizabeth Ames
Producers - Kip Perry, Elan Bentov, Thomas Skinner, Robert Chatfield
Director - Kip Perry
Editor - Erik Swanson

[@wilbertcr]

Looks to me like this guy worked for or with the Government to achieve his goals, so why does the presenter call his achievements free market creativity if it was the people pooling their money via taxes that funded this guy’s research?

[@imogen1]

"Free market innovation" is always a cover for privatized profit from government funded research. This is patently absurd, but it's worse than that because as younger generations realize that "free market" propaganda is nonsense, we risk swinging to the other extreme. There are ways in which market economics are beneficial to society, but that gets lost when it's propped up as the panacea that it never was. We need government programs taking big risks without direct profit. This applies to research, but it also applies to insurance and assurance programs for the necessities of life. It applies to social safety nets, to public education, and to early childhood health services and nutrition programs. "Free market" has become the byword for the dismantling of our great public institutions and of the very republic itself. When I see nonsense like this, I see only an old soldier of a propaganda war long ended whose meddling in the modern day risks the collapse of civilization itself.