Our Inspiration
About Our Name
Grow Further is a name that inspires members on multiple levels, each with a solid intellectual foundation.
Faraway Crops
The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit. - CICERO
First, it’s about helping crops and livestock far away grow better. In the interconnected modern world, you will see the fruit, whether that means global peace and prosperity or simply preventing refugees from showing up on your doorstep (which was actually the initial motivation behind the Rockefeller Foundation’s extremely successful international agriculture programs). Or in the case of bananas, where an incurable disease may wipe out the entire crop of the most commonly consumed variety worldwide within 15 years, we may literally not see the fruit in the local supermarket.
Go further
“This will never do! No one will swallow these figures! Cut it down to $500. That’s as much as we can expect the public or Congress to believe.” - US Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson
Second, it’s about making the effect of your donations go further. In 1913, US Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson’s economists estimated $1000 in social benefits per $1 invested in agricultural R&D. His response: “This will never do! No one will swallow these figures! Cut it down to $500. That’s as much as we can expect the public or Congress to believe.” While 1000:1 is probably an overestimate for most individual projects, it’s not completely implausible in the aggregate–less than 0.1% of world GDP goes to agricultural research and the value of having enough food is arguably greater than that of all other material goods put together.
Personal Growth
"Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat." - SOCRATES
Third, it’s about personal growth. But you can’t become a statesman by sitting in a classroom. The best way to learn is to be involved, and that’s exactly what Grow Further offers, an opportunity to get involved in changing the world regardless of where you’re coming from and what you may know or not know going into the journey. You can be part of changing the world in a big way, the kind of way that sometimes earns international humanitarian prizes.
Founder's Inspiration
“Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
Norman Borlaug
“Man seems to insist on ignoring the lessons available from history. . . . Man can and must prevent the tragedy of famine in the future instead of merely trying with pious regret to salvage the human wreckage of the famine, as he has so often done in the past.”
“This will never do! No one will swallow these figures! Cut it down to $500. That’s as much as we can expect the public or Congress to believe.” - in response to his economists estimating $1000 in social benefits per $1 invested in agricultural R&D, 1913
“We need the World Bank, the IMF, all the big foundations, and all the governments to admit that, for 30 years, we all blew it, including me when I was President. We were wrong to believe that food was like some other product in international trade, and we all have to go back to a more responsible and sustainable form of agriculture.”
