WHITE BREAD IMPERIALISM - White Bread: A Social History of the Store Bought Loaf - page 79

the next eighteen years, the MAP's twenty U.S. agricultural scientists and one hundred Mexican coun-
terparts would tackle two fundamental priorities: creating high-yield, disease-resistant wheat seeds and
raising the productivity of the country's corn farmers. Work on improving vegetables, beans, barley, and
sorghum would come later, but the Mexican government and Rockefeller Foundation agreed that wheat
and corn were top priorities. Corn covered 65 percent of the country's agricultural land, supplying the
cornerstone of the Mexican diet. It was an obvious place to start. Wheat was less prevalent, taking up
only 7 percent of the country's farmland, but it was grown primarily by large commercial farmers and
consumed by affluent urbanites. It suited the country's modern image of itself—wheat and white bread
were aspirational commodities. As a result, wheat received disproportionate attention. The payoff from
this work was stunning and quick.
By 1948, the American plant pathologist Norman Borlaug and his team had already developed and
begun to distribute wheat strains resistant to Mexican stem rust. Their ultimate success came a few years
later. In a series of genetic crosses conducted during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Borlaug successfully
brought together the three Holy Grails of Mexican wheat improvement: rust resistance, of course, but
also dwarf stature and heightened responsiveness to petroleum-based synthetic fertilizer. While Mexican
wheat production couldn't have grown without rust resistance, it was the latter two traits—dwarf stature
and input responsiveness—that would truly change the world. On their own, the MAP seeds were only
marginally more productive than traditional Mexican varieties. But, unlike traditional varieties, they
were specially designed to thrive as part of a larger package of modern inputs—pesticides, intensive
irrigation, mechanized harvesting, and, most importantly, large quantities of synthetic fertilizer. Given
sufficient water and chemical pest control, the MAP seeds could efficiently convert massive quantities
of fertilizer into ever-larger grain heads. This is what made them revolutionary. In fact, the new seeds
were so good at converting synthetic nutrients into large grain heads that their stalks tended to collapse
under their own weight, making mechanized harvesting impossible. Dwarfism solved that problem. The
creation of wheat varieties with thick stalks and squat stature prevented collapse (called “lodging”) and
ushered in the era of ultra-mechanized, high-yield grain farming.
Of course, the promise of the MAP seeds could be realized only in conjunction with a full package of
modern inputs. This was expensive and would have long-term consequences. In the short term, however,
backed by subsidized credit, education programs, and infrastructure investment, “el trigo de Rocke-
feller”—Rockefeller wheat—spread faster than its creators could have imagined. By 1957, 90 percent of
all wheat seeds planted in Mexico were the high-yield varieties supported by industrial inputs. Between
1940 and 1960, the index of Mexican fertilizer consumption soared 4,000 percent, while pesticide ap-
plication increased eight-fold. In the space of just a few years, wheat yields more than doubled, and
they would increase 400 percent over the next two decades. Despite the fact that Mexico experienced
its highest ever population growth rates during the postwar period, wheat production far outpaced the
number of new consumers. Indeed, from 1940 to 1970, thanks in substantial part to the MAP's work,
overall per capita food production in Mexico increased from 1,991 calories and 54 grams of protein per
day to 2,623 calories and 80 grams of protein. Mexico quickly erased its wheat deficits and by the 1960s
joined the ranks of exporting nations, at least for a while. 53 So incredible were the results that the MAP
model eventually came to be called “the Green Revolution.”
THE WHITE REVOLUTION
The first Bimbo Bakery emerged out of the same early-1940s crucible as the Green Revolution. At
some inchoate level, the company's founders understood something typically left out of histories of the