AUGUST 1952

CHEMICAL AGRICULTURE--"In March 1951, the Iranian Government asked the U.S. for immediate help in an emergency. Swarms of locusts were growing so rapidly along the Persian Gulf that they threatened to destroy the entire food crop. The U.S. responded by sending some army planes and about 10 tons of the insecticide aldrin, with which they sprayed the area. The operation almost completely wiped out the locusts overnight. For the first time in history a country-wide plague of locusts was nipped in the bud. This dramatic episode illustrates the revolution that chemistry has brought to agriculture. Chemical agriculture, still in its infancy, should eventually advance our agricultural efficiency at least as much as machines have in the past 150 years." [Editors' note: The United Nations's Stockholm Convention of 2001 banned the production of aldrin and other persistent organic pollutants.]

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