ROOT VIGOR Norman T. Uphoff of Cornell pioneered a global trend.Credit...Marie-Soleil Turmel
ITHACA, N.Y.  Many a professor dreams of revolution. But Norman T. Uphoff, working in a leafy corner of the Cornell University campus, is leading an inconspicuous one centered on solving the global food crisis. The secret, he says, is a new way of growing rice.
In a decade, it has gone from obscure theory to global trend  and encountered fierce resistance from established rice scientists. Yet a million rice farmers have adopted the system, Dr. Uphoff says. The rural army, he predicts, will swell to 10 million farmers in the next few years, increasing rice harvests, filling empty bellies and saving untold lives.
He and his method have flourished despite the skepticism of his Cornell peers and the global rice establishment  especially the International Rice Research Institute, which helped start the green revolution of rising grain production and specializes in improving rice genetics.
“The extraordinary thing,” he said, “is that both farmers and scientists have missed this  farmers for thousands of years, and scientists until very recently and then some of them in a state of denial.”
YIELD The rice growing method is used in places like Indonesia.Credit...Shuichi Sato
Moreover, wide spacing let individual plants soak up more sunlight and send out more tillers  the shoots that branch to the side. Plants would send out upwards of 100 tillers. And each tiller, instead of bearing the usual 100 or so grains, would puff up with 200 to 500 grains.