Now I wanted to end with a spot of culture, so I looked up "who was the father of agriculture", that led me to Demeter, the Greek Goddess of Agriculture, and her Roman counterpart, Ceres. But it also led me to this man, Norman Ernest Borlaug, and the more I read about him the more interested I became. But I never expected I would find him on a card...!
He was born in Saude, Iowa, on March the 25th, 1914, into a family of Norwegians, who had come to America in 1854. In fact Saude turns out to be a settlement of Norwegian people. Much like at home, the primary industry was farming, and education was basic, only, pretty much, that which would be needed to maintain the farm your family ran.
His grandfather knew different though, and he encouraged the young boy to read and then to go off and apply to college. This he duly did, to the University of Minnesota, but was rejected, though he was accepted to their lower site, the General College, which brought him to the attention of their College of Agriculture, which he joined after just two semesters.
His interest in agriculture led him to join the CCC. This was a bit like the Peace Corps, started by President Roosevelt to give purpose to unemployed and unmarried men. It was advertised as being "for work, play, study and health" and they were also paid, thirty dollars a month. This ran for nine years, between 1935 and 1942, and it was also extended to women, on separate camps, with assistance from Mrs. Roosevelt. The men could be sent anywhere in America to work on forestry, wildlife, housing and other construction, plus assistance during and clearing up afterwards in cases of floods, fires, famines, etc. And it only ended in 1942 because Pearl Harbour occurred in December 1941, at which point all those unemployed young men were seen as being more useful in the forces.
The placement changed our man`s life in more ways than one, and the most important factor in that change was a plant disease called rust, which he encountered at a lecture. This disease preyed on cereal crops, barley, oats, and wheat, and it caused much famine worldwide. The lecture was delivered by a man called Elvin Charles Stakman, who was a professor at the University of Minnesota, and he asked if our man would like to go there to study under him. Of course he said yes, and that led to a Masters of Science degree and a Ph.D in plant pathology.
With that he got a job at DuPont Industries in Delaware, ostensibly to work on biological warfare. Instead of that he was sent down to Mexico, to work on improving their soil and preventing crop failures. Here he did the start of his work into using genetics to make better, but smaller, cereals, ones which would repel diseases such as rust, and which would not leave people hungry, and which would not be affected by wind and rain. He even developed a system whereby wheat began to learn to cope with ever changing environments, something that will be vital in years to come.
And he stayed in Mexico, eventually becoming the director of the International Wheat Improvement Project, a founding members of the World Cultural Council, and a Professor at Texas A&M University, which you may remember all the way from Monday`s card. He also renovated and saved the little one room school that he first attended, back in Saude; it is now owned by the Norman Borlaug Heritage Foundation.
In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. And he died on Seotember the 12th, 2009, aged ninety-five, at his home in Dallas
This card is by Kakawow, a company which makes toys, character merchandise, and cards, and somehow managed to get the licenses to Marvel and Walt Disney. There is much debate as to whether they are Chinese or Japanese or even American-Asian, but it turns out they are part of Suplay Group which is based in Beijing.
Kakawow "Diverse", simply means a set of all sorts of things, starting with famous people, in a historical sense, over the first 98 cards, and then moving to the animal kingdom from card 99 to 134, when they go into modern sporting personalities from the world of basketball. In total there are a hundred and forty eight cards, but there are also a lot of insert sets. These include autograph cards, bookplates, canvasses, and what we would call silks, but they call "Art Extraordinary Embroidery", as well as holofoils, cards with differently coloured borders, and sub sets including "Biological Traces", "Echoes of Mastery", "World Wonders", and, in a nod to another of their products, "Hey Dolls".