Commemorating 25 Years: The Ezra Taft Benson Agriculture and Food Institute

After 25 years of serving the people of the world, the Benson Institute celebrates by reporting on it's accomplishments.

 

*Where did it all start? Who first conceived an agriculture and food institute at Brigham Young University? Some say that the idea evolved from conversations among colleagues in the College of Biology and Agriculture who wanted to serve by sharing the results of their research with people around the world. BYU’s extensive language resources seemed to make it the perfect home for such a center.

As the Ezra Taft Benson Agriculture and Food Institute celebrates its 25th anniversary, it is striving more than ever to fulfill the mission, “to improve the quality of life of people throughout the world.”*

An unusually large group gathered at the Brigham Young University experimental farm in Spanish Fork, Utah, on 23 September 1975. After a cow-milking competition and a dinner, Dallin H. Oaks, president of BYU, made the anticipated announcement of a new organization called the Ezra Taft Benson Agriculture and Food Institute. The Institute would be organized to fight hunger and malnutrition throughout the world.

Former United States Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson responded to this announcement by saying, “There is no pursuit more worthy, no profession more noble than the labor of one who provides food and clothing for his fellowmen. Throughout the world—and I have seen most of it—there are vast resources waiting to be used for the betterment of mankind. The objective of this Institute is to use the human, physical, and spiritual resources of BYU to help the people of the world help themselves improve their quality of life. The Institute will be an agency of experimentation whereby the agricultural resources of the various lands can be evaluated, new technology applied, [and] nutritional needs studied. Then, the beneficial results of this research can be implemented.”

Lowell D. Wood: Starting Out

Lowell D. Wood became the first director of the Benson Institute. Former chairman of BYU’s Department of Agricultural Economics, Wood worked extensively with the farms and the agricultural loan portfolios of the Welfare Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Church). With little more than office space to start with, Wood knew that Ezra Taft Benson’s vision for the Institute would require extensive amounts of work and sacrifice. Wood spent his first months as director with D. Delos Ellsworth, associate Institute director, working to establish a board of directors, raise money, and define goals for the Benson Institute. Some fledgling projects dealt with home storage, home gardens, and small scale food canning—research done by request of the Church Welfare Services. Another early endeavor for the Benson Institute was Project Guatemala, a collaborative effort with the Church and various departments at BYU to improve the health, literacy, and nutrition of needy families in Guatemala.

During its first years, the Benson Institute was led to where demand existed and funds were appointed. It became involved in the Indian Assistance Program, which was intended to help Native Americans throughout North America. Demonstration farms, where research could be conducted, were built in many places. These farms provided opportunities for Indians to learn improved agricultural practices.

D. Delos Ellsworth: Branching Out

Before serving as associate director of the Benson Institute under Lowell Wood, D. Delos Ellsworth taught real estate finance and development at many universities, including Arizona State and Texas Tech. He also served as a state legislator in Arizona. After he assumed the position of director in 1978, the Benson Institute continued sponsoring research on home gardens, food storage, and canning but also began to branch out into other agronomic and animal science research. One example of this was the undertaking by Laren R. Robison, of BYU’s Agronomy Department, and N. Paul Johnston, of BYU’s Animal Science Department, to develop an integrated small scale crop and animal production system that would help subsistence farmers become more productive.

At the announcement of the Benson Institute, Ezra Taft Benson (right) shakes hands with Max Wallentine, associate dean of the College of Biology and Agriculture at BYU, who was named to the board of directors, as Dallin H. Oaks, president of BYU, looks on.	John Hill of BYU’s Food Science and Nutrition Department studied the ability of various oil treatments on seed and grain to repel insects during long periods of storage in homes or on small farms. From left to right—Arthur Wallace, N. Paul Johnston, John Hill, Frank Williams, Raymond Farnsworth, Delos Ellsworth		Local participants in Guatemala planted gardens following instructions developed by the Benson Institute during Project Guatemala.		Raymond Farnsworth of BYU’s Agronomy Department was active in the Benson Institute’s Indian Assistance Program. Peter Deswood’s family were among the many that benefited.

As financial resources became more available the Benson Institute was able to expand into new areas. One such project taken on by the expanding Institute was sponsored by Control Data Corporation (CDC). CDC wanted to develop a computerized data base of technologies appropriate for small scale agriculture, and the Benson Institute provided them with the expertise and experience that was needed.

Table for Home Vegetable Gardens: This table, created by David Leatham, bases optimal distribution of space for each vegetable on the size of the garden (25, 50, 200 sq. ft.).
Garden Size	25	50	200
Zucchini	2	5	5
Carrots	9	9	9
Collards	9	10	10
Tomatoes	2	19	19
Lettuce	-	7	10
Chard	-	-	7
Spagetti Squash	-	-	4
Cucumbers	-	-	13
Onions	-	-	7
Kohlrabi	-	-	9
Parsnips	-	-	3
Bell Peppers	-	-	18
Beets	-	-	7
Broccoli	-	-	48
Spinach	-	-	5
Hubbard Squash	-	-	8
Snap Beans	-	-	18
Yield	$28.04	$48.84	$95.60
Cost	$11.72	$11.72	$11.72
Profit	$16.32	$37.12	$83.88
Labor (Hrs)	2.05	4.32	13.28
Profit/Hr	$7.96	$8.59	$6.32

Beside these projects, Benson Institute staff traveled and worked constantly to form ties with government officials, particularly ministers of agriculture in various countries including Hong Kong, the Philippines, Egypt, and countries throughout Latin America.

Laren R. Robison: The Small Scale Agriculture Model

Laren R. Robison was an associate dean of the College of Biology and Agriculture at BYU when he became the director of the Benson Institute in 1983. That year the extensive world travel of the Benson Institute staff paid off when the Benson Institute signed a contract with the government of Ecuador and the Pan American Health Organization. This contract allotted $250,000 for the implementation of the Small Scale Agriculture Model (SSAM) in Ecuador. The SSAM was a model Robison helped develop and was one part of a larger program, the Family Self-Reliance Program, that taught families to use a small amount of land for production at a level adequate for self-sufficiency, health, and economic status improvement. The Institute began in Ecuador by building two demonstration farms and working to teach SSAM techniques to 10 families.

Through funding from CDC, the Benson Institute also completed computer coursework that presented the major principles and concepts for successful implementation of SSAM. Robison visited Mexico, Bolivia, and Chile to talk with government dignitaries about the possibility of implementing a SSAM system in those countries. In 1987, an arrangement was made with the government of Mexico to allow the integration of SSAM into the curriculum of Mexico’s high school and university level institutes for technical agriculture.

Randy Christopherson helped complete work on the Small Scale Agriculture Courseware Project, done collaboratively by the Benson Institute and Control Data Corporation.		Delos Ellsworth, right, poses with the Ecuadorian Minister and Vice-Minister of Health after helping to close a $250,000 contract with Ecuador’s government to implement Small Scale Agriculture in Manabí, Ecuador.		Cleria Espinoza, a member of the Benson Institute staff, demonstrates a solar oven, which can be used as part of the Family Self-Reliance Program, to visitors at the Provo office of the Benson Institute.

The Benson Institute remained involved in many other projects including the developments of a solar oven, a solar dryer,and a small tractor. The Institute also sponsored research on vegetable yields in response to irrigation frequency and quantity along with investigations of dry-packing methods and other forms of food preservation. Faculty exchanges between BYU and Latin American universities were conducted. A team was sent to Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua, Mexico, to establish a canning plant at a local university. Medical educators visited an Ecuadorian medical school to strengthen its science curriculum. Some studies on fish farming were done, and the results were implemented near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. With these and many other projects, it was clear that the Benson Institute was beginning to live up to the expectations of its founders.

James B. Jensen: A New SSAM

Members of the Benson Institute’s SSAM team in Pimpiguasí, Manabí, Ecuador

James B. Jensen came to the Benson Institute from the faculty of microbiology and public health at Michigan State University in 1989. His own background dealt with malaria research, but he immediately saw the benefit that the SSAM could have in the practices of subsistence farmers. Jensen therefore decided to focus all of the Benson Institute’s efforts on SSAM. Unfortunately, before Jensen arrived, the Benson Institute lost its contract to implement SSAM in Ecuador due to a change in the government. Without the money from the Ecuadorian government contract, Jensen decided to completely renovate the way that SSAM was disseminated. In the past, SSAM implementation involved sending Benson Institute staff into villages to work one-on-one with groups of 12–15 farmers. This strategy was expensive because responsibility rested solely with Benson Institute staff members. Working with the technical agriculture schools in Mexico directly, however, had proven successful and shown that educational institutions were more stable than presiding governments. The Benson Institute began to join forces with other colleges and universities to set up programs where research, already being done by students in the country, could benefit poor farmers in surrounding areas. The Benson Institute also set up some experimental farms and began to sponsor student research on topics related to SSAM.

Evaluation of Small Scale Agriculture: These tables were used in evaluation and implementation of SSAM. The table on the left shows the amount of each product produced and its use. The table on the right shows the daily requirements per person for a set of nutrients and the number of people that one SSAM farm could support.
			USE					Daily Reg.	Persons
	Product	Total (kg)	Family	Animal	Excess		Nutrient	per Person	Supported
	Corn	3769	1884	1043	842		Calories	2300 kcal	7
	Soybean	571	---	571	---		Protein	56 g	14
	Drybean	110	110	---	---		Calcium	800 mg	16
	Vegetables	1213	440	---	773		Iron	1 mg	15
	Poultry	225	123	---	102		Vit. A	5000 IU	22
	Eggs	2800	2555	---	245		Thiamine	1.4 mg	15

This form of work was more effective and required less manpower; instead of setting up its own infrastructure, the Benson Institute used established local university resources, including some of the personnel. As a result, more people were affected because of this increased involvement. Farmers accepted recommendations more readily because they were coming from locals rather than from outsiders. Most importantly, when university students and faculty members were involved in helping their fellow countrymen, they saw the importance of doing so and began to do beneficial projects on their own. Thus, a program was born to teach people to teach others, and a continuum for learning ensued.

A training center was established in Mexico to continue teaching educators how to implement SSAM in their curriculum. The Benson Institute also began working closely with CUNORI, an agriculture college in Guatemala, and gave scholarships to some Guatemalan students to do agricultural research with BYU faculty. A new program was also started that taught English to those involved in the various SSAM programs.

Paul Johnston: Developmental Research and Teaching

Paul Johnston became the next director of the Benson Institute in 1994. His background in animal science, as well as his concern for international development had involved him with the Benson Institute and SSAM from its inception. During this time, he had noticed that even when SSAM was tailored to a targeted community, it did not always pose the best solution for a particular problems faced by subsistence farmers in that area. Also, implementing SSAM in an area meant a long-term commitment of resources to that area. He felt that increased involvement was needed from the local universities, as well as from BYU faculty and students. Also, there was a greater need to research and identify the problems in each community before developing specific solutions to those problems. It would still be important that the students go into the rural communities to teach subsistence farmers about the solutions developed through their research, but these solutions would be presented as individual projects rather than variations on SSAM. This allowed more flexibility in research possibilities as well as in the implementation of solutions. More faculty members of BYU’s College of Biology and Agriculture became involved due to the flexibility of working on projects tailored to their specialties. It became easier for the Benson Institute to enter and leave different areas, rather than being committed to one place for a long period.

Walipini Yields: This table, from research by Oscar Rodrigo Ayaviri, through the Benson Institute in Bolivia, shows yield of various crops in a walipini, a type of underground greenhouse, developed as a means to grow nutritious vegetables on the harsh Bolivian high plains.
	Depth of Walipini (m)
Vegetable	0.6	1.2	174.6
Tomato	156.9	150.4	174.6
Red Pepper	47.0	34.7	55.8
Lettuce	38.8	39.7	39.2
Carrot	10.5	11.5	12.3
Radish	3.8	4.2	3.5
Beet	66.0	65.7	67.7
Parsley	53.3	73.5	58.3
Sugar Beet	6.7	7.5	7.2
Pea	44.0	45.3	54.4
Cabbage	35.4	41.2	42.8
Alfalfa	25.8	39.3	37.5

The newly refined focus took advantage of the educational community’s inherent strengths of research and teaching. For those not accustomed to international development work, this method sometimes seemed less appealing. Changing many lives in one step, as the SSAM was intended to do, was appealing; however, although it had made a difference in many lives, it did not always work. Instead of using one simple solution to solve problems of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty of subsistence farmers worldwide, the new focus on research and teaching admitted that there are no easy answers to the problems faced by these farmers. The various research projects undertaken by native students throughout Latin America included diverse topics such as protein fortification of corn tortillas with soybeans, crop production in underground greenhouses, parasite frequency of certain populations, and investigations of the nutritional habits of pregnant mothers and their small children.

Soy Fortified Tortillas: This table, from research by Benson Institute-sponsored students in Guatemala, is one example of an attempt to develop and then test solutions to the problem of protein deficiency. The students fortified tortillas with soy to increase the protein content, and then measured acceptability of the new recipes.
	Acceptability (%)
% Soy in Tortilla	Liked	Disliked	Neutral
0	100	0	0
13	93	0	7
30	93	7	0

Common Sanitation Practices: This table, created by John Hill of BYU's Food Science and Nutrition Department, summarizes a few aspects that are researched in a community before the Benson Institute begins implementing any project.
		Practice	%
	Source of Drinking Water
		Faucet	79
		Well, Pond, or Stream	21
	Water Purification
		Unpurified	50
		Chlorine Bleach/Boiling	50
	Toilet Facilities
		None	11
		Outside Latrine	40
		Inside Toilet	49
	Sanitization of Dishes
		None	84
		Chlorine Bleach/Hot Water	16
	Stove
		Gas or Electric	49
		Open Fire on Brick or Adobe	51
	Animals in House
		Cats and Dogs Only	81
		Other Farm Animals	19
	Kitchen Floor
		Solid	56
		Earth	44

One other major step taken by the Benson Institute during Johnston’s time as director was an innovative expansion into Africa in 1999. After much deliberation, Morocco and Ghana were chosen as the two countries in which the Benson Institute would work. Universities were selected in each country, and students were selected to do research, just as had been done previously in Latin America.

Mario Calderón, Rolando Dugal, and (José) Genaro Pérez discuss the optimal spacing of corn in order to increase crop yields in Guatemala.		Glaucia Narváez and Sara Bentancourt (nutritionists) weigh a small child in Limón, Guatemala, as a part of their nutritional evaluation of children in the community.		Jaycie Fidel learns to make pots from villagers as she interns in Okwenya, Ghana.

The Future

Innovative changes may occur as a new director is appointed during the year 2001, yet it remains certain that the Benson Institute will continue to seek ways of improving the quality of human life through nutritional and agricultural means. With the support of donors, the expertise of BYU’s College of Biology and Agriculture, and the enthusiasm of students very willing to serve, the Benson Institute enters a new millennium of development and service. Ezra Taft Benson’s vision sounds forth as people throughout the world are able to better their lives through the assistance of the Benson Institute.