Sustainable Agriculture is defined as “a way of raising food that does not harm the environment”. This includes crops that “are rotated around the fields to enrich the soil and help prevent disease and pest outbreaks”. Green proponents practice this method of preserving the nutrients in a farm’s soil in order to ensure that future generations of crops will thrive without the use of pesticides or fertilizers.
This system of crop rotation was just one of many innovations brought about by one extraordinary black man: George Washington Carver.
Born a slave to the Carver family in Missouri in 1864, he taught himself how to read on the plantation. Carver survived the Civil War in his childhood, after which he attended school in Kansas. There he excelled in his studies as he worked odd jobs to support himself.
Undeterred by the enormous obstacles that faced former slaves in the years just after the abolition of slavery, Carver steadfastly pursued an education throughout his early life, and applied to several schools. He was accepted to Highland University, but upon his arrival he was denied admittance for being black. He was finally accepted to Simpson College in 1887, then transferred to what is now Iowa State University in 1891 to pursue an academic career in science, studying plants and botany. He earned a B.S. in 1894 and an M.S. in agriculture in 1897 and became a member of the teaching faculty–the first black man to do so at Iowa State. Read the full story at Toyota Green Initiative.