Page 82 - Winter2020

Farm and Ranch

FOOD FOR ALL: FROM JOHN BOYD ORR TO THE COLD WAR
By Anneliese Abbott

We were told “How are we going to feed nine billion outstrip food supply, which I discussed in my
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that it was the people by 2050?” last Wise Traditions article. However classic
That was what everyone was talking about Malthusianism didn’t try to help feed people, be-
responsibility when I entered agricultural college in 2013. It cause it was based on the assumption that there
of American was everywhere—on posters, in lectures, in could never be enough food to go around. At
scientists journal articles. It was my generation’s job to the same time, a humanitarian goal of eliminat-
increase production, I was told, since we would ing hunger and poverty worldwide was gaining
and farmers be the ones in power in 2050. It was up to us to ground. The idea that the world could become
to figure out make sure there was enough food to go around. a better place if everyone got enough food to
Implicit in much of the “feeding the world” eat was promoted by many people, but its most
how to feed discourse were several main assumptions. One passionate advocate was a Scottish nutritionist
the world. was that global food production needed to be named John Boyd Orr.
increased at a faster rate than population growth
to wipe out hunger. Another was that science and JOHN BOYD ORR
technology were the keys to increasing produc- “Sir John Boyd Orr, the craggy Scotsman
tion worldwide—and that organic production who heads the Food and Agriculture Organiza-
or traditional agricultural practices just weren’t tion, is a man you would look at twice in any
productive enough to do the trick. Most impor- crowd,” wrote Henry Jarrett in a 1947 article
tantly, we were told that it was the responsibility for the magazine The Land. “The gaunt dignity
of American scientists and farmers to figure out and the banked-up fire in the man remind you
how to feed the world. somehow of an elemental force of nature, like
As I have looked into the origins of the the wind and tide. He acts like one when his
“feeding the world” rhetoric, it seems that it ideas for food and human welfare are at stake.”
was influenced by two major ideas. One was Born in Scotland in 1880, Boyd Orr got
the Malthusian concern that population would his first look at hunger and poverty after he
graduated from Glasgow University in 1902 and
started teaching school in a Glasgow slum. When
Portrait of Sir John he showed up on the first day of class, he was
Boyd Orr. Original shocked to see that his students were clothed in
caption reads: “Por- rags and covered with lice. They were unable to
trait of Sir John Boyd concentrate on their lessons because they were
Orr, famed Scottish weak and malnourished.
nutritionist, first “I went home the first night feeling physi-
director-general of cally sick and very depressed,” he wrote in his
the Food and Agri- 1966 autobiography As I Recall. “I had another
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culture Organization look at the school the next day, and came to the
of the United Nations conclusion that there was nothing I could do to
from 1945-1948. relieve the misery of the poor children, so I sat
FAO headquarters, down and sent in my resignation.”
Rome, Italy.” Although he worked as a doctor for a brief
©FAO photo. period and served in World War I, Boyd Orr’s

real passion was nutrition—one of the most
80 Wise Traditions WINTER 2020