Source: GENETIC LITERACY PROJECT, 8/6/18


In about 1980, I visited several International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) research sites in Mexico. The trip included a tortuous drive to a low-elevation research station near Poza Rica. As we rounded one bend, I vividly remember seeing an ejido farmer hoeing weeds in his half-hectare corn field. “He is always there,” I was told, day after day under the hot sun. When he progressed to one side of the field, newly emerged weeds already needed hoeing on the other. What a tedious task I thought, as I compared that to my own corn fields in Ontario. For me, one spray application at a cost of about $20 per half-hectare, and less than 5 minutes of field work, meant near weed-free conditions for the whole growing season.

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