Fascist Pigs: Technoscientific Organisms and the History of Fascism

In 1914 Strampelli presented his first big success: the Carlotta Strampelli strain (named after his wife, who, as has already been noted, participated actively in the hybridization work).[40] The Carlotta strain resulted from hybridization between the Rieti and Massy varieties and successfully combined the low susceptibility to rust of Rieti with the resistance to lodging of Massy, achieving high productivity in the fertile deep soils of central and northern Italy.[41] With help from local chairs of agriculture, seeds were distributed to 318 farmers, 297 of whom gave positive feedback to Strampelli and only 17 of whom complained about poor results.[42] The yield of the Carlotta strain in the first years was enough to transform its creator into a public figure. But after the rainy winters of 1914–1917 came dry years that revealed the fragility of the new “elite race” under drought conditions. The news of record productivities had convinced farmers in other regions, including arid areas of southern Italy, to make use of Carlotta seeds—an error that led to suspicion of the value of the new strain. In the following years, Strampelli was to become more cautious about the way his new creations were released, and was to exercise control over the circulation cycle.

The Ardito hybrid was to assume the burden of saving Strampelli’s reputation. To produce that strain, the geneticist employed exotic varieties from the collection of wheats from around the world that he had been accumulating in his institution. According to Sergio Salvi’s reconstruction of the process, Strampelli corresponded with the main centers of wheat breeding in the world (among them Wageningen, St. Petersburg, and the Vilmorin company).[43] This was a central feature of any ambitious hybridization program: to have at its disposal a large variety of plants from different origins, ready to be combined in the most productive way.[44] Instead of operating as the old Botanic Gardens did, acclimatizing entire trees and plants, the geneticist at the Rieti Experiment Station combined organisms that, taken in isolation, presented no obvious benefit. No other case is more convincing than the development of Ardito, which resulted from hybridization of the already highly productive hybrid of Rieti and Wilhelmina Tarve with the Japanese strain Akagomuchi. The Japanese variety had no value when standing alone in a field, but its precocity was a precious resource to incorporate into Ardito, which would mature fifteen to twenty days earlier than common varieties. Not only could the terrain be used for a second crop; equally important, advancing the harvest season minimized the effects of drought. Also, earlier harvests meant less exposure of peasants to malaria, a crucial issue for the unreclaimed lands of southern Italy.

And this was not all. Crucially, the Akagomuchi strain, with its small and thick stems, also conferred on Ardito great resistance to lodging, allowing generous use of chemical fertilizers. Ardito would thus become the best friend of the big chemical conglomerate formed by fascist developmentist economic policy. Strampelli talked of productivities that might reach 64 quintals per hectare (94 bushels per acre), more than ten times those achieved with common varieties. This combination of dwarf Japanese wheats with fertilizers immediately evokes the Norman Borlaug varieties that revolutionized grain production in India and Mexico in the 1960s, thus confirming Jonathan Harwood’s suggestion that we should talk of a first Green Revolution in the early decades of the twentieth century.[45]

^{Figure 1.6 Strampelli’s Ardito wheat, 1932.}

^{(Strampelli, “I Miei Lavori”)}

Strampelli released his new variety in 1920. But only with the launching of the fascist “Battle of Wheat” were the new elite races to find massive diffusion in Italy. In 1925, three years into fascist rule, Strampelli’s wheats occupied no more than 3 percent of the cultivated grain area of Italy. That would climb to 30 percent in 1932 and would exceed 50 percent in 1940.[46] In the fertile areas of the Po Valley in northern Italy, Strampelli’s hybrids monopolized the entire market. In the highly productive province of Ferrara, about 90 percent of the total grain acreage was planted with Strampelli’s seeds.[47] Not only did grain production skyrocket with the massive use of fertilizers, more than doubling wheat productivity in Ferrara, but the early character of grains such as Ardito offered the possibility of freeing the land for production of rice, tobacco, or linen, further contributing to the autarky policies of the fascist regime.[48]