Frolik: Vietnam has great farming potential
by Peter Anderson
Women's lib may be coming into its own in the
U.S., but in Vietnam women have played an integral
part in the work force for some time, according to
E.F. Frolik, dean of UNL's College of Agriculture.
Much of this has been due to the shortage of
manpower because of the war and to the low level of
mechanization in agriculture, he said.
Frolik and G.B. Alcorn, director of the Agriculture
Extension Service at the University of California at
Berkeley, were in Vietnam for two months working
for the U.S. Agency for International Development
(AID).
Frolik said that Vietnam has great possibilities for
agricultural production but work is needed to
increase production and efficiency.
The war, he said, has caused salt intrusion in the
southern delta where dams and dikes have been
broken; the abandonment of farm land and
subsequent overgrowth, and defoliation along the
northern seacoast where the soil is eroding.
Within 10 years Vietnam's cultural production will
double, he said. Getting land back into use and
improving transportation to rural areas are important
in achieving this, he said.
The introduction of sugar cane and the expansion
of rice and rubber production also will improve the
economic future, Frolik said.
The people have been anxious to start sugar cane
production for a long time, but haven't, he said,
because "it is an ideal place for Viet Cong to hide."
Higher wages have helped support the rural areas
during the war, he continued. The wages are higher
than in Saigon because of the great number of people
who moved into the cities for security, he said.
Frolik visited Vietnam in 1970. He said that in
1970 the economy seemed stronger and Saigon was
more peaceful. In 1973 the fighting was close to
Saigon and troops patrolled most of the city, he said.
At the time of the ceasefire, fighting was very evident
with gu; fire heard and flares seen at night.
"You got a very definite feeling that you were in a
country at war," Frolik said.
He said the plans for his trip were made in August
and that he had not been in Indochina to
make recommendations for redevelopment of North
Vietnam.
Past aid to South Vietnam has done a lot of good,
Frolik said, "but you have to take it in the context of
a country at war."
As an example of U.S. assistance, Frolik mentioned
the Me Kong Delta area where there is little water
control. The rice fields are usually left fallow during
the dry season. He said that sorghum has been
planted successfully after the rice harvest and. that it
has proved to be a suitable crop for the dry season.
Aid to South Vietnam will come not only from the
U.S., Frolik said. Japan and South Vietnam would be
good trade partners, he explained. South Vietnam can
produce many agricultural goods that Japan needs,
and Japan, in turn, can offer small machinery and
support industry.
There is going to be a place for someone in aiding
South Vietnam, Frolik said. "They could do it
themselves but it would take a lot longer."
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Dean of Agriculture E.F. Frolik
back from Vietnam.
Feminists
author
stage play
by Nancy Stohs
Give a woman activist enough static about community
bathrooms, enough chauvinistic jokes about co-ed army '
barracks and woman presidents and she's bound to fight
back.
Sdme Join the legal front in Washington, D.C., lobbying"
for equal rights. A group of local UNL women have created
their own kind of ammunition, a feminist theater.
"The idea is that more people will listen through
entertainment," Sue Brown of the University Women's
Action Group (UWAG) said. "We (UWAG) have done a lot
of speaking and have gotten good reactions, but we felt we
could uo more."
Brown, members of UWAG, the National Organization of
Women (NOW) and volunteers from the Women's Resource
Center last December formed the UNL feminist theater.
"The (regular) theater on campus has been very bad
toward women," Brown said. She said many UNL theater
productions don't offer major women's parts.
In looking for appropriate plays, Brown said they found
little in print that portrayed women in nondiscriminate
roles.
The first production is an original. Brown and UWAG
member Chris Stout contributed the plot and six other
women wrote the dialogue.
It is a short melodrama called "A Funny Thing
Happened in the Community Bathroom Last Night" or
"Peter's Problem Pregnancy."
A deliberate reversal of the sex roles, it is the story of
Peter Prude, who is raped by a little old lady in a
community bathroom and becomes pregnant.
Constantly a victim of circumstances, Peter faces
problems of discrimination in getting an abortion ("After
all, it's the man's responsibility"), in getting accident
insurance. ("I'm sorry . . . pregnancy is not an illness, but a
natural phenomenon"), in filing suit against the repist and
finally, in getting Aid to Dependent Children (ADC).
'According to Brown, the play is a satire of the general
assumption that "women naturally love to get raped, love
to stay home with children . . . and can always obtain
ADC."
But its main purpose is laughter, the co-authors said.
They said it will probably appeal most to college and high
school students.
"Feminists are often accused of not having a sense of
humor," co-author Linda Goldberg said.
According to the director, Jan Healey, "There's no
reason why more serious things couldn't be done later on,
but we wanted to start out with something light-hearted."
Tryouts for "Peter's Problem Pregnancy" were this week;
Parts will be announced Sunday.
The play will be presented in three weeks Brown said.
The group will present it at the Nebraska Union,
dormitories, Greek houses or other organizations that
request it.
Feminist theaters exist in every major city throughout
the country, she said, but this is the first she knows of in
this area.
The objective of the theater at UNL is simply to change
attitudes-the "really ridiculous" sextist attitudes of male
students and teachers, she said.
"They have to start recognizing women are human
beings," she said. "Then attitudes and laws will change
together."
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daily nebraskan page 9
friday, march 9, 1973
