Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that sorghum has more potential than corn as a

Transcription

1 Lewton 1 Jaron Lewton Formal Outline for Persuasive Speech Kevin Miller, professor CO215 Public Speaking Huntington University 24 May 2016 Topic: Sorghum s advantages over corn as a sustainable crop General Purpose: To Persuade Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that sorghum has more potential than corn as a major crop and is the key to future agricultural growth and sustained life. Thesis Statement: Sorghum has more potential than corn as a major crop and is the key to future agricultural growth and sustained life. [Statement of fact] Outline Organization of Main Points: Comparative Advantage INTRODUCTION [Attention Step] Dr. Norman Borlaug is one of the few people to ever earn the Nobel Peace Prize, which he earned in He is remembered for his constant striving to end world hunger and his endless research into improving wheat. His work in Mexico eventually expanded wheat

2 Lewton 2 production all across the world and led what is now known as the Green Revolution. Because of his incredible work in the agricultural field, Borlaug is said to have saved more lives than any other human being. [Story: Phillips] [Rhetorical Device: Meaningful Pause] [Audience Connection] Norman Borlaug was just a small town farm boy, but he used his knowledge and skills to advance agriculture. With a rapidly growing population and limited resources, farmers have a lot of pressure on them to do the same. As we look to the future, we need something huge to happen in the agricultural field to drive us forward. We need a plant that can take us to the next level. [Motivational Appeal: Vital] [Topic Orientation Step] One crop in particular that is often overlooked, yet has great potential to be this crop is sorghum. [Thesis] In the next few minutes, I want to share about Sorghum, and how it has a higher potential than corn to sustain our population and take agriculture further in the future. [Statement of fact] [Preview step] To do so, first I will define sorghum and look at some of its uses, then I will show the advantages it has over corn and its higher potential to sustain our future population. BODY I. Sorghum is a major global crop that is a part of the grass family. A. Sorghum is member of the grass family and is native to Africa. B. According to the Principles of Field Crop Production Publication, Sorghum is referred to as the camel of all crops, because it is very drought resistant and can withstand extreme weather. [Paraphrase: Martin, Waldren, and Stamp] [Rhetorical Device: Metaphor]

3 Lewton 3 1. It requires much less water than most crops. 2. It can grow in nearly any type of soil. C. Sorghum is rotated with peanuts and cotton, much like corn is rotated with soybeans. [Fact: O Brien] D. Sorghum has many different types and most varieties in the U.S. are hybrids, but there are two major types we will focus on. [Fact: Martin, Waldren, and Stamp] 1. Grain sorghum is mostly used for livestock feed and has a short stalk, about two to five feet tall, with lots of seeds. 2. Sweet sorghum is much taller, between five and ten feet, and is harvested mostly for its sweet juice and cellulosic stalk that can be used for biofuel. [Fact: Rocateli] a) The juice can be used to produce biofuel. b) The stalk of sweet sorghum can be burned to produce electricity. [Fact: O Brien] [Transition: Now that we know a little about sorghum, let s see how it compares to corn.] II. Sorghum has many advantages over corn as a useful crop and is the key to sustaining the future. [Motivational Appeal: Vital] A. It has multiple advantages in regards to every unit of ethanol produced. 1. Sorghum has less overall inputs, making it is more cost effective than corn. [Statistic: Evans and Cohen] [Rational Appeal: Inductive reasoning] a) Sorghum requires less to convert the ethanol.

4 Lewton 4 b) It also requires less nitrogen fertilizer for it to grow. 2. Sorghum produces more coproducts along with the ethanol produced such as distiller s grain and electricity. [Statistic: Evans and Cohen] B. According to the USDA AgResarch Magazine, by 2022 thirty six billion gallons of biofuel will be required to meet the transportation need within the United States, and sorghum is one major candidate to help meet this need. [Paraphrase: O Brien] 1. The University of Kentucky Extension Service published that Corn only has an ethanol potential of up to 420 gallons per acre. [Paraphrase: Sweet Sorghum for Biofuel ] 2. In comparison, sorghum has a much higher ethanol potential of gallons per acre. C. Sorghum requires much less than corn when comparing several needs. [Fact: Evans and Cohen] 1. Sorghum requires less water and irrigation than corn. 2. Sorghum requires less nitrogen fertilizer than corn. 3. Sorghum requires less land area than corn in order to grow. D. Many against sorghum would say that corn has a much higher yield and it does not contain dangerous prussic acid, as sorghum does. [Fact: Martin, Waldren, and Stamp][Counter-argument] 1. The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service showed in the 2015 Crop Production Summary, that corn yield in the United States was bushels

5 Lewton 5 per acre, while sorghum was only 76 bushels per acre. [Statistic: Crop Production 2015 Summary] [Rational Appeal: Causal Reasoning] a) This does not take into account the amount of research that has been put into corn compared to sorghum. b) This also does not account for the huge difference in irrigation and fertilizer added to corn and not sorghum. 2. Prussic acid is not a problem for harvested sorghum because it is only high in immature plants. [Fact: Martin, Waldren, and Stamp] a) The more mature the plant becomes, the less prussic acid it contains. b) The acid turns to gas and evaporates away as the crop is in storage. c) The grain is ground before being fed to animals, which also removes the acid. E. Along with all of this, Sorghum is currently highly demanded in countries such as China, causing it to rise above corn in market price, which will lead to more farmers growing it. [Fact: Kesmodel] CONCLUSION [Topic and Thesis summary] In conclusion, Sorghum is a unique crop with many appealing attributes. It can withstand extreme temperatures and performs better than corn in many areas. [Audience reconnection and clincher statement] According to the Future Agricultural Resource Model or (FARM), by 2050 the population is projected to rise to over 9 billion, requiring a 75% increase in crop production of what it was in With such a need for agricultural improvement, we desperately need another Norman Borlaug to step up and take

6 Lewton 6 one part of agriculture to the next level. We desperately need a Borlaug of sorghum to take this crop to the next level and prove just how valuable it really is. [Summary: Sands] [Motivational Appeal: Vital]

7 Lewton 7 Works Cited Crop Production 2015 Summary. Washington DC: USDA, USDA National Agricultural Statistic Service. Web. 23 May Evans, Jason M., and Matthew J. Cohen. "Regional Water Resource Implications Of Bioethanol Production In The Southeastern United States." Global Change Biology 15.9 (2009): GreenFILE. Web. 19 May Heuze, V., G. Tran, and F. Lebas. "Sorghum Grain." Feedipeda. INRA Science and Impact, 8 Oct Web. 21 May Kesmodel, David. "U.S. Farmers Latest Hot Crop: Sorghum." Wall Street Journal 21 Jan. 2015: n. pag. The Wall Street Journal. Web. 20 May Martin, John H., Richard P. Waldren, and David L. Stamp. Principes of Field Crop Production. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, Print. O'Brien, Dennis. "Finding the Right Biofuels for the Southeast: A Range of Alternatives." Agricultural Research Magazine Sept. 2012: n. pag. United States Department of Agriculture. Web. 20 May Phillips, Ron. "Norman E. Borlaug." The World Food Prize. World Food Prize, Web. 21 May Rocateli, A. C., et al. "Rapidly Drying Sorghum Biomass For Potential Biofuel Production." Agricultural Engineering International: CIGR Journal 15.1 (2013): Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 May 2016

8 Lewton 8 Sands, Ron. "With Adequate Productivity Growth, Global Agriculture Is Resilient to Future Population and Economic Growth." Economic Research Report 1 Dec. 2014: n. pag. United States Department of Agriculture. Web. 21 May "Sorghum and Such." Grow Appalachia. SpiderSavvy, 23 Apr Web. 21 May "Sweet Sorghum for Biofuel." University of Kentucky Extension Service. U of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Apr Web. 20 May 2016.dc