Desktop Computers: Carver Industries

Sunday, 18 November 2012

Carver Industries

Biotechnology might seem like a new science to many, but it has its roots in the work of some early big thinkers — among them George Washington Carver, arguably one of the world’s first industrial biotechnologists and the father of sustainable farming.

Come June, BIO will give a nod to Carver’s biotech heritage when it honors an individual for groundbreaking industrial biotech work with the third annual George Washington Carver Award for Innovation in Industrial Biotechnology.

To help farmers adopt sustainable practices, Carver and his students developed more than 300 industrial uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes and other crops that could be grown in rotation with cotton and corn. His inventions included plastics, glue, soaps, paints, dyes for cloth and leather, medicines and cosmetic ingredients — all made from crops and agricultural residues.