2004 John Phillips Award
Recipient
Remarks by Dr. Randolph Barker
'48
October 12, 2004
Walk Gently on This Earth
Mrs. Dupont, Principal Tingley, Members of the Exeter
faculty, fellow Exonians,
It is a great honor for me to accept this award.
I would like to make a few brief remarks. But I should
tell you that I am very nervous for three reasons.
First, I have never spoken before to a prep school
audience, second I have never spoken with members
of my family present, and third, as a college professor
I have never spoken for less than 50 minutes. So bear
with me.
Your family has given each of
you the roots to grow on. Exeter
gave me, and will give you the
wings to fly. Those wings have
flown me all over the world.
I grew up in Swampscott, Massachusetts,
and came to Exeter as a junior
in 1944. For me Exeter held both
agony and ecstasy. The most agonizing
moment was when I received my
first report card, one B, three
Cs and one D, and the D was in
English. I thought I was going
to die right then and there.
Of course that was before an
Andover graduate told us that
with a C average you could become
president of the United States.
The ecstasy came in my senior
year when under Coach Ted Seabrook
I defeated the Andover wrestling
captain. I was twelve years ahead
of John Irving, who in the World
According to Garp would immortalize
wrestling under Seabrook at Exeter.
Leaving Exeter in 1948, I had
no idea where I was headed. After
two years at Princeton, I still
didn’t know. As noted in
the citation, in the summer after
my sophomore year, I made the
first decision that would begin
to set the direction of my career.
I decided to transfer into agriculture
at Cornell, but because I did
not come from a farm background
I needed a year of farm experience
to graduate. So in the fall of
1950, instead of returning to
college, I got a job as a hired
hand on a dairy farm in upstate
New York. I learned two things
from this experience. First,
I did not want to be a dairy
farmer and get up at five o’clock
every morning 365 days a year
to milk cows. Second, I learned
how to communicate with farmers.
Farmers are much the same the
world around. If you are interested
in what they are doing, they
will tell you anything you want
to know. For example, I recall
two or three years ago in China
we asked a farmer how much land
he had. He answered, “Do
you want to know what I tell
the government, or do you want
the actual figure?”
Cornell was the right place
for me because there I could
combine agriculture with Asian
studies. The university has had
a long history in agriculture
in developing countries. For
example, the Chinese had sent
scholars to study agriculture
at Cornell in the nineteenth
century. In the 1920s and 1930s
a number of Cornell agricultural
scientists did research in China
and John Loesing Buck (the husband
of Pearl Buck) published his
extraordinary study on land use
in China.
I graduated in 1953 just at
the end of the Korean War. Following
two years in the army and four
years in graduate school I was
once again at Cornell, this time
on the faculty in agricultural
economics.
From a more global perspective,
the stage was set for U.S. international
cooperation in agriculture by
Harry Truman in his inaugural
address in January 20, 1949.
“I believe that we should make available to peace-loving people the benefits
of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations
for a better life. And in cooperation with other nations we should foster capital
investment in areas needing development.”
This became known as the Point
Four Program. The driving force
for US involvement in the developing
world, however, was not only
the concept of humanitarian aid
but cold war politics. In Asia
in particular, there was growing
concern that the population explosion
and the food grain shortage would
provide fertile ground for the
spread of communism.
Under the Point Four Program,
a series of eight university
exchange programs were developed
between American land grant colleges
and colleges in the developing
world (including Iraq and Iran).
In 1952 Cornell University began
an exchange with the University
of the Philippines College of
Agriculture that was to last
for twenty years. By 1965, when
Cornell asked me to take a two
year assignment in the Philippines,
there were 154 contracts between
American universities and universities
in developing countries. We were
building institutions and training
people.
In the 1960s the Ford and Rockefeller
foundations began developing
a series of international agricultural
research institutions. The first
of these, the International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI), was
located in Los Banos next door
to the University of Philippines
College of Agriculture. In 1966,
shortly after I arrived in the
Philippines, I was asked by Bob
Chandler (former president of
the University of New Hampshire
before he became director of
IRRI) to head the economics program
at IRRI. We were a team of approximately
twenty scientists representing
about fifteen different disciplines.
Joining the International Rice
Research Institute team was like
buying stock in a company no
one had ever heard of that suddenly
took off. My colleagues and I
were fortunate to have been involved
in a small way in the development
and dissemination of technologies
that transformed rice production
in Asia.
There is an old Byzantine saying:
a person who has bread (rice)
has many problems; a person who
has no bread (rice) has only
one problem. The mission of the
International Rice Research Institute
was: (1) to conduct research
to increase the quantity and
quality of rice, and (2) to develop
and educate promising young scientists
from the major rice growing areas
of the world.
I mention the training first
because this is often overlooked,
and my contribution has come
largely as a teacher. Between
1962 and 2000 IRRI trained more
than 5000 people in everything
from hands-on extension to masters
and PhD degrees. In every corner
of the rice-growing world today
are scientists who have been
to Los Banos in the Philippines.
As with the university exchange
programs, so with the international
centers, we were training people
in developing countries to enable
them to solve their own problems.
The technical impact has been
described as the “green
revolution.” Over the three
decades from 1965 to 1995, with
the use of new varieties, fertilizer,
and expanded irrigation, production
more than doubled and world rice
prices fell by more than 50 percent.
By the end of this period the
parentage of three-quarters of
the rice varieties planted in
South and Southeast Asia could
be traced to varieties developed
at the International Rice Research
Institute. With the lower rice
prices, however, the major beneficiaries
were not the rice farmers, but
the low-income consumers who
had been accustomed to spending
30 to 40 percent of their income
on rice.
Those familiar with the green
revolution literature know that
many problems were associated
with this rapid technological
change – overuse of chemicals,
social dislocation and environmental
damage associated with large
dam construction, and overexploitation
of ground water, to name a few.
And approximately 800 million
people still cannot afford an
adequate diet (i.e., they live
on less than $1.00 per day) even
though there is now no shortage
of rice and other cereal grains.
Poverty remains a pervasive problem
in much of Asia and Sub-Saharan
Africa and most of the poverty
is in the rural areas.
After the Vietnam War and beyond
the end of the cold war, U. S.
financial support for agricultural
research and for U.S. university
involvement in agricultural development
declined steadily. One report
notes that USAID funding for
agriculture had dropped by the
year 2000 to one-third of its
level in the mid-1980s. This
shift has occurred despite the
evidence that returns to investment
in research in agriculture have
remained as high as 40 to 50
percent per year. I don’t
believe the decline in support
reflects so much the desire of
the American people as the short
sightedness of government and
non-government agencies. Maintaining
food security and alleviating
poverty remain high on the agenda
of most development agencies,
but there is no clear strategy
for getting the job done and
political imperatives are pulling
the financial support elsewhere.
Parenthetically, the United States
is the lowest among all the OECD
developed countries in share
of national income for foreign
aid to the developing countries.
The U.S. contribution is less
than two tenths of one percent
of national income, while the
Scandinavian countries as a group
give approximately one percent.
On a more optimistic note, American
universities are now engaged
in what may prove to be a highly
successful and cost-effective
enterprise, transposing the classroom
and knowledge to developing country
universities, using information
technology. Biotechnology also
offers a new, if controversial
avenue for increasing food grain
production and quality. For example,
scientists are working at Cornell,
the International Rice Research
Institute, and elsewhere to develop
rice plants that use available
moisture more efficiently. I
am currently the principal investigator
on a project in China called, “how
to grow more rice with less water” -
a collaboration with Wuhan University,
the International Water Management
Institute, and the International
Rice Research Institute funded
by the Australian government.
Today the world is short of water,
not rice.
Things are changing so fast.
I was in China at one of our
collaborative research sites
150 miles west of Wuhan just
one year ago, and we were going
down a dirt road looking for
a village head. I remember that
day very well because it was
the same day that my beloved
Red Sox were in the seventh game
of the American League playoffs,
finding yet another way to lose
to the hated New York Yankees.
I need to qualify my comment
that things are changing so fast
- some things never change. But
fortunately, I was in central
China and there was no way I
could witness this event. It
would be one week before I would
learn of the catastrophe. (Are
there some Red Sox fans in the
audience? I once had a graduate
student who dedicated his thesis
to Boston Red Sox fans and all
the other down trodden people
of the world). To return to my
story, we stopped a farmer on
the side of the road and asked
where we could find the village
head. He pulled out his cell
phone and called the village
head. That is when I decided
I had to have a cell phone -
and I am still learning how to
use it.
In closing I have very little
in the way of advice. Walk gently
on this earth. Be the best global
citizen you can be; in today’s
world this is the true mark of
patriotism. As you choose your
future, keep your options open.
I hope that luck is with you
as it has been with me and that
you are in the right place at
the right time. Meanwhile, live
as if you will die tomorrow,
but learn as if you will live
forever.
Mrs. Du Pont, Principal Tingley,
and to the Exeter faculty both
past and present, thank you again
for this award.
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