Tuesday, June 17, 2008

T. Uphoff:“The world has lots and lots of problems”


Rice brings me a lot of memories.Many years ago,when I lived in Brazil ,my father who was an engineer and inventor,always researching for alternative uses of Nature's sources for food and chemical application,come in contact with a Brazilian politician who owned rice fields in the Brazilian Midwest.
My father,Dr. Stefan Felix Bornstein studying rice which he liked very much to eat as well, come up with a formula to recycle rice's husk and create bricks which could be used instead of the clay and ceramic ones , for structural construction .
Here another scientist's work.
Many a professor dreams of revolution.
But Norman T. Uphoff, working in a leafy corner of the Cornell University campus, is leading an inconspicuous one centered on solving the global food crisis. The secret, he says, is a new way of growing rice. “But if we can’t solve the problems of peoples’ food needs, we can’t do anything. This, at least, is within our reach.”That may sound audacious given the depths of the food crisis and the troubles facing rice. Roughly half the world eats the grain as a staple food even as yields have stagnated and prices have soared, nearly tripling in the past year. The price jolt has provoked riots, panicked hoarding and violent protests in poor countries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17rice.html?pagewanted=1

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