1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,311
SPEAKER: Hello, everyone, and
welcome and congratulations.

2
00:00:03,311 --> 00:00:07,610
So I said that I would do two
experiments or two lessons

3
00:00:07,610 --> 00:00:08,510
to learn from Mexico.

4
00:00:08,510 --> 00:00:10,070
I might only have time for one.

5
00:00:10,070 --> 00:00:15,930
So I want you to pay attention to this
image because when you see this image,

6
00:00:15,930 --> 00:00:17,490
you'll see it again during my talk.

7
00:00:17,490 --> 00:00:21,620
But I want you to think, history is
going to be one of my favorite classes

8
00:00:21,620 --> 00:00:22,850
that I take at Harvard.

9
00:00:22,850 --> 00:00:26,120
And if that wasn't the case in
high school, maybe, and just maybe

10
00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:29,450
it's because you didn't have a
great high school history teacher.

11
00:00:29,450 --> 00:00:33,620


12
00:00:33,620 --> 00:00:38,700
So how do we narrate histories of
science and why does it matter?

13
00:00:38,700 --> 00:00:42,530
Why does it matter that
we understand our past?

14
00:00:42,530 --> 00:00:46,310
History is one of the most
politicized disciplines.

15
00:00:46,310 --> 00:00:49,910
There is a reason why
politicians are constantly

16
00:00:49,910 --> 00:00:52,910
debating what should be
taught in the classrooms

17
00:00:52,910 --> 00:00:55,010
and what should be
part of the curriculum

18
00:00:55,010 --> 00:00:59,510
because if we don't understand our
past or how our past is framed,

19
00:00:59,510 --> 00:01:04,379
it impacts the decisions in
our present and in the future.

20
00:01:04,379 --> 00:01:07,580
So I'm going to quote from
one of my favorite historians.

21
00:01:07,580 --> 00:01:11,480
He's a Haitian, or was a Haitian
historian, Michel-Rolph Trouillot,

22
00:01:11,480 --> 00:01:15,720
who wrote Silencing the Past, the
Power and the Production of History.

23
00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:19,110
And he said this about
a particular event,

24
00:01:19,110 --> 00:01:23,210
"This is a story within a
story so slippery at the edges

25
00:01:23,210 --> 00:01:29,780
that one wonders when and where it
started and whether it will ever end."

26
00:01:29,780 --> 00:01:36,140
He was talking about the US
invasion of Mexico in 1846.

27
00:01:36,140 --> 00:01:41,720
After that war ends, the United States
takes 52% of Mexico's territory.

28
00:01:41,720 --> 00:01:44,180
And the configuration
that we have today is

29
00:01:44,180 --> 00:01:49,510
the result of that treaty of so-called
peace between our two nations.

30
00:01:49,510 --> 00:01:52,870
What if we began
history lessons learning

31
00:01:52,870 --> 00:01:57,160
that our current
geographic configuration is

32
00:01:57,160 --> 00:02:01,010
a result of an invasion of war?

33
00:02:01,010 --> 00:02:06,900
So when we begin our stories, and
where we begin, is very important.

34
00:02:06,900 --> 00:02:10,850
We need to change our
perspectives and flip the world

35
00:02:10,850 --> 00:02:16,910
to find new ways of thinking
about where we live.

36
00:02:16,910 --> 00:02:20,300
So the when is really important
but also is the where.

37
00:02:20,300 --> 00:02:26,000
As a historian, I begin my search
for those answers in archives.

38
00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:29,030
So some archives look like
this one in Mexico City, which

39
00:02:29,030 --> 00:02:30,560
is the foreign relations archive.

40
00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:32,120
And it's extraordinary.

41
00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:35,840
You have some of the best
minds collecting and working

42
00:02:35,840 --> 00:02:37,040
on those archives.

43
00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:40,180
Other archives look like this.

44
00:02:40,180 --> 00:02:43,680
This is the ministry of agriculture,
livestock, rural development, fisheries

45
00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:47,910
and food in Mexico as well,
not far from the other one.

46
00:02:47,910 --> 00:02:53,370
Now, which stories do you
think will be easier to emerge?

47
00:02:53,370 --> 00:02:56,970
But hidden in here are some
extraordinary histories

48
00:02:56,970 --> 00:03:01,200
that we may never get to know,
simply because of where they

49
00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:05,340
are located and so difficult to attain.

50
00:03:05,340 --> 00:03:08,130
As Harvard students,
I will challenge you

51
00:03:08,130 --> 00:03:12,210
to reframe your questions to think
of them differently and think

52
00:03:12,210 --> 00:03:15,530
about accessing these stories.

53
00:03:15,530 --> 00:03:19,130
And with that, we go
back to this picture.

54
00:03:19,130 --> 00:03:22,730
Well, not yet.

55
00:03:22,730 --> 00:03:29,100
In the mid-20th century, when we were at
war in the 1940s, in the United States

56
00:03:29,100 --> 00:03:30,370
there was a big concern.

57
00:03:30,370 --> 00:03:33,180
It was about national security,
but not national security

58
00:03:33,180 --> 00:03:34,770
as you might understand it.

59
00:03:34,770 --> 00:03:38,800
There was a real concern that
we might run out of food.

60
00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:43,260
We saw this during the COVID
pandemic, that with trade disrupted,

61
00:03:43,260 --> 00:03:45,600
it was difficult to bring food in.

62
00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:48,400
So an idea was thrown out.

63
00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:53,290
What if we create with our
allies on the Western hemisphere

64
00:03:53,290 --> 00:03:59,590
a way of thinking about producing more
food by genetically engineering plants,

65
00:03:59,590 --> 00:04:03,160
but also by applying
scientific ideas to the fields?

66
00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:05,440
And where will we begin
those experiments?

67
00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:08,030
In the fields of Mexico.

68
00:04:08,030 --> 00:04:11,710
So it will be Mexico that
will help us feed the world.

69
00:04:11,710 --> 00:04:14,770
When we think of who feeds the
world, we don't immediately

70
00:04:14,770 --> 00:04:18,670
think of Mexico, or for that matter,
the countries of the Global South.

71
00:04:18,670 --> 00:04:20,079
But we should.

72
00:04:20,079 --> 00:04:24,460
So in the 1940s, the Rockefeller
Foundation, here in the United States,

73
00:04:24,460 --> 00:04:27,310
and the Mexican government
come together and they

74
00:04:27,310 --> 00:04:31,660
devise what will be called the MAP,
or Mexican Agricultural Program,

75
00:04:31,660 --> 00:04:36,640
applying science to crops
to produce more food.

76
00:04:36,640 --> 00:04:39,700
The idea it was a problem of yield.

77
00:04:39,700 --> 00:04:43,780
If we could yield more crops, we
would be able to feed the world.

78
00:04:43,780 --> 00:04:45,880
And it wouldn't matter
if we were at war.

79
00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:49,840
The Western hemisphere would be safe.

80
00:04:49,840 --> 00:04:54,360
So if you see, this is the
first image that you saw.

81
00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:56,940
And this is an experiment
station in Mexico.

82
00:04:56,940 --> 00:05:00,690
What you see here, and as
far as the horizon goes,

83
00:05:00,690 --> 00:05:03,510
these are all the
experimental wheats that were

84
00:05:03,510 --> 00:05:06,820
devised in this one experiment station.

85
00:05:06,820 --> 00:05:12,100
There are so many that more
than 60% of the world's wheat--

86
00:05:12,100 --> 00:05:14,140
let me repeat that.

87
00:05:14,140 --> 00:05:19,180
More than 60% of the
world's wheat is derived

88
00:05:19,180 --> 00:05:23,920
from varieties that were designed
in this experiment station.

89
00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:29,410
That means that wheat in African
nations, in Southeast Asia,

90
00:05:29,410 --> 00:05:35,710
in the Middle East can trace their
varieties to one experimental station.

91
00:05:35,710 --> 00:05:42,580
Now, why haven't we learned about this,
that more than 60% of the world's wheat

92
00:05:42,580 --> 00:05:49,120
was designed in one experimental station
that traces its origins to that 1940s

93
00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:52,390
program that was a collaboration
between the Rockefeller

94
00:05:52,390 --> 00:05:54,310
Foundation and the Mexican government?

95
00:05:54,310 --> 00:05:57,160
So let's learn a little bit about that.

96
00:05:57,160 --> 00:05:59,860
In the 1940s, as I
told you-- and here you

97
00:05:59,860 --> 00:06:02,710
have bureaucrats from the
Rockefeller Foundation

98
00:06:02,710 --> 00:06:06,100
who are designing this idea
of how can we feed the world?

99
00:06:06,100 --> 00:06:09,210
How can we transform the food supply?

100
00:06:09,210 --> 00:06:12,990
So this question of food
supply issues is not a new one.

101
00:06:12,990 --> 00:06:16,050
We've been dealing
with this for decades.

102
00:06:16,050 --> 00:06:19,280
So they decide that
they're going to create

103
00:06:19,280 --> 00:06:23,150
focusing on wheat, corn, and beans.

104
00:06:23,150 --> 00:06:25,310
But wheat wins out.

105
00:06:25,310 --> 00:06:28,160
And they're going to focus all
of their scientific energies

106
00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:34,430
in producing a better variety of wheat,
one that produces more, more grain.

107
00:06:34,430 --> 00:06:38,570
And when they're planting it in the
outskirts of this experimental station

108
00:06:38,570 --> 00:06:43,610
for over a decade, in the
mid-1960s around the world,

109
00:06:43,610 --> 00:06:48,460
there is a famine happening
primarily in India and Pakistan.

110
00:06:48,460 --> 00:06:51,770
What they're going to do
is those experimental seeds

111
00:06:51,770 --> 00:06:54,410
will be put on trucks--
this is in Mexico.

112
00:06:54,410 --> 00:06:57,920
And those trucks are
heading to the port, where

113
00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:00,980
they will be shipped to South Asia.

114
00:07:00,980 --> 00:07:03,500
And the idea is that
these Mexican seeds, which

115
00:07:03,500 --> 00:07:07,580
were called miraculous seeds,
would be planted in Indian soil

116
00:07:07,580 --> 00:07:09,650
and in Pakistani soil.

117
00:07:09,650 --> 00:07:12,770
And they would produce more
wheat, stopping the famine that

118
00:07:12,770 --> 00:07:15,050
was affecting so many people.

119
00:07:15,050 --> 00:07:19,380
And it was incredibly successful.

120
00:07:19,380 --> 00:07:23,280
These seeds are what launched what
we now call the Green Revolution.

121
00:07:23,280 --> 00:07:27,240
And the Green Revolution, which
was major use of fertilizers,

122
00:07:27,240 --> 00:07:30,960
of irrigation, of
insecticides and pesticides,

123
00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:34,650
transformed how we do agriculture today.

124
00:07:34,650 --> 00:07:38,070
But not only did it transform
how we produce agriculture,

125
00:07:38,070 --> 00:07:42,090
it also, within one
generation, we realized we

126
00:07:42,090 --> 00:07:46,670
were polluting our ecology
by using too many pesticides,

127
00:07:46,670 --> 00:07:50,840
too much irrigation from groundwater.

128
00:07:50,840 --> 00:07:55,940
So in that decade, what seemed to
be an amazing scientific solution

129
00:07:55,940 --> 00:07:59,150
turned out to be a problem for today.

130
00:07:59,150 --> 00:08:03,380
The solution, which seemed accurate
and necessary at that time,

131
00:08:03,380 --> 00:08:09,290
has created a series of ripple
effects, not just on the human body,

132
00:08:09,290 --> 00:08:13,770
but on non-human animals
and the environment.

133
00:08:13,770 --> 00:08:16,460
So out of that
collaboration, today we have

134
00:08:16,460 --> 00:08:18,980
something that's called the
International Maize and Wheat

135
00:08:18,980 --> 00:08:22,160
Improvement Center, which is
headquartered in Mexico City.

136
00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:25,850
But it has research arms
in 22 other nations.

137
00:08:25,850 --> 00:08:32,690
And it is a network of researchers and
scientific ideas about how to farm.

138
00:08:32,690 --> 00:08:36,710
The main concerns today are biosafety.

139
00:08:36,710 --> 00:08:42,510
What are we going to do with diseases
that can cross borders so easily?

140
00:08:42,510 --> 00:08:44,450
This is a picture from 2013.

141
00:08:44,450 --> 00:08:46,940
And what you have
there are, at the time,

142
00:08:46,940 --> 00:08:51,770
the two richest men in the world, Carlos
Slim, from Mexico, and Bill Gates.

143
00:08:51,770 --> 00:08:56,000
And what they were doing at Cimmyt, they
were inaugurating that biosafety lab

144
00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:59,630
that you just saw because they
realized that we're in another era,

145
00:08:59,630 --> 00:09:02,090
that we need new seeds.

146
00:09:02,090 --> 00:09:05,690
Just as that issue in
1943, where you needed

147
00:09:05,690 --> 00:09:11,020
to create a new plant, a new
seed, we're in a different stage.

148
00:09:11,020 --> 00:09:14,850
And what we have is a new
coming hunger, a famine

149
00:09:14,850 --> 00:09:20,020
that will emerge not because of
war, but because of climate change.

150
00:09:20,020 --> 00:09:22,710
So what kind of seeds will be needed?

151
00:09:22,710 --> 00:09:25,320
What kind of seeds will be designed?

152
00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:26,400
And guess what?

153
00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:29,060
It's happening again in Mexico.

154
00:09:29,060 --> 00:09:33,050
So when we think about where seeds
and seed research is being done,

155
00:09:33,050 --> 00:09:38,540
yes, we have that network of
seeds, of plant and crop research.

156
00:09:38,540 --> 00:09:46,060
But we also have one of the largest
seed banks outside of Mexico.

157
00:09:46,060 --> 00:09:49,170
So what does that mean
in my remaining minute?

158
00:09:49,170 --> 00:09:52,080
In my own research, I knew that story.

159
00:09:52,080 --> 00:09:53,520
But I knew that there was more.

160
00:09:53,520 --> 00:09:58,260
And I needed to go to India
to find the connecting story.

161
00:09:58,260 --> 00:10:03,840
What I found there was that similarly,
once those Mexican seeds in the 1940s

162
00:10:03,840 --> 00:10:07,320
made it to India, they
were researched on

163
00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:10,230
and developed new types of varieties.

164
00:10:10,230 --> 00:10:14,250
But we still don't have full
answers because we still

165
00:10:14,250 --> 00:10:16,570
have hunger in our world.

166
00:10:16,570 --> 00:10:20,340
And I said, how is it possible that
we don't understand these histories

167
00:10:20,340 --> 00:10:21,795
or that we don't know about them?

168
00:10:21,795 --> 00:10:26,430
It turned out when I went to
that initial research station,

169
00:10:26,430 --> 00:10:31,050
the stories of farmers, of Mexican
scientists, were not found.

170
00:10:31,050 --> 00:10:36,570
Rather, what was known, was the
story of Norman Borlaug, whom we

171
00:10:36,570 --> 00:10:38,700
might know from the Green Revolution.

172
00:10:38,700 --> 00:10:41,910
And he's considered the father
of the Green Revolution.

173
00:10:41,910 --> 00:10:46,050
By understanding the stories of
the farmers, of the scientists,

174
00:10:46,050 --> 00:10:50,430
and of the research station, we
gathered a new understanding.

175
00:10:50,430 --> 00:10:53,940
And it's with the farmers
that the answers lay,

176
00:10:53,940 --> 00:10:57,150
a collaboration between the
farmers and the scientist

177
00:10:57,150 --> 00:11:00,480
and not just a focus on the science.

178
00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:04,200
And here, as my
departing message, I just

179
00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:07,110
want to show you what
the farmers have done.

180
00:11:07,110 --> 00:11:13,080
They have created a 365,
seven days, 24 hour a week.

181
00:11:13,080 --> 00:11:16,950
What they're doing there is mapping
the amount of water in the valley.

182
00:11:16,950 --> 00:11:20,910
They have designed to the
litre the amount of water

183
00:11:20,910 --> 00:11:24,600
that is needed to produce more
crops because this valley is found

184
00:11:24,600 --> 00:11:26,800
on the outskirts of the Sonoran Desert.

185
00:11:26,800 --> 00:11:31,810
So they have had to use
22nd century technology

186
00:11:31,810 --> 00:11:35,290
in order to envision a
future that came too early.

187
00:11:35,290 --> 00:11:38,620
They were designing seeds
for a warming climate.

188
00:11:38,620 --> 00:11:41,860
And the climate has changed
so quickly that the seeds

189
00:11:41,860 --> 00:11:46,060
that they were designing, they have
to rethink what they're doing now.

190
00:11:46,060 --> 00:11:51,480
So my last words is think
about that field, how you frame

191
00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:53,670
questions, how you think about history.

192
00:11:53,670 --> 00:11:58,170
When we think we have the answer,
the impact and the ripple effect

193
00:11:58,170 --> 00:12:02,450
might be more different than
you thought Thank you so much.

194
00:12:02,450 --> 00:12:06,000