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The Agronomists' Accomplishments and Opportunities for Future Contributions in the United States 1
Author(s) -
DeGraff Herrell
Publication year - 1957
Publication title -
agronomy journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.752
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1435-0645
pISSN - 0002-1962
DOI - 10.2134/agronj1957.00021962004900120002x
Subject(s) - atlanta , citation , library science , political science , agricultural economics , sociology , economics , history , computer science , archaeology , metropolitan area
I T COULD go without saying that I feel highly honored to be invited to participate in this Golden Jubilee program of the American Society of Agronomy. Especially is this true since I am from outside your discipline. Yet even this fact has advantages, for I can appropriately emphasize the great importance of your accomplishments of the past half century to every American-yes, indeed, to the vital question of food adequacy for the rapidly increasing population of the world. Dr. Bradfield already has discussed the agronomist in the world setting. I would like only to add this observation. Through most of man’s history in the world the growth of population has been negligible. If today’s world-average rate of growth had continued no more than since the time of Christ, and even from a small base, man’s numbers would now be measured in the impossible figure of quadrillions rather than billions. The upturn in growth rate on a world basis has come only recently and has been related primarily to increased supplies of food. The world never has held more people than could be fed from current food supplies-and just as certainly, it never has had much less than the full number that could be fed. The means-ofsubsistance, to use the old Malthusian term, has always been the prime determinant of man’s numbers. It still is today, and will be for a good many years to come. In the half century since this Society was established, the population of our own country has doub1ed-a 100% increase in the lifetime of any person now 50 years old. But the larger number today is better provided with the products of the land than was half as much population when the Society of Agronomy was founded. I doubt that members of the Society have made more than small contributions to the population increase. Your contributions to food supplies are quite another matter. In thinking about my assignment for today, I began to wonder who is an agronomist? It is a term subject to wide variation of definition. My conclusion is that it includes all concerned with scientific aspects of soils and crops-