State Quiz - Iowa

Yeah but Captain Kirk saved the whole planet multiple times.

I was just going to comment that I've never heard of this guy, but he sounds awesome and I am going to look him up. One of the instances where it's great that a quiz includes an answer that almost no one will know.

I agree with everything you say about his saving lives. However, I grew up in a farm family which participated in that drastic change in farming practices. We were told by our bankers to farm "fencerow to fencerow" because the world needed our food, and we all would have to get on board with the new way if we wanted to stay competitive. So, we plowed up our marginal land, bought bigger, more expensive equipment and purchased all sorts of expensive herbicides and insecticides to do what manual labor had done formerly. Universities sent experts to places like Brazil to teach farmers there how to grow soybeans - the rainforest seemed like a good place to start. Miracle hybrids grew ten times the amount of grain per acre as the old varieties. However, individual plants didn't absorb any more nutrients from the soil, it was merely divided many times among all the extra seeds per plant, so there is some controversy that the new grains aren't as nutritive as the old varieties.

Irrigation was promoted which has caused problems with low water tables in some areas, and flushing chemicals into ditches which killed animals. We used to catch crawdads in the ditches to use as fish bait. I haven't seen any in the ditches for decades. There was more dependency on oil with the new pesticides and more trips through the field to spray them. Many small farmers were put out of business because they didn't have the money to invest in the new methods and bankers wanted to support farmers who were open to modernization. So, yes, Borlaug can be credited with saving starving people - many, many people. However, as with most revolutions, there were also negative consequences that weren't foreseen at the time, which are still causing problems today. I'm not taking away from his success, I'm just injecting a little realism from one who can now see it from both sides (and is grateful that she can now grow her own food organically.)

All the characteristics of a midwestern state!

Don't forget gun stores, liquor stores and payday loan stores.