Father of 'Green Revolution' Dies
Nobel Peace laureate Norman E. Borlaug, whose breeding of crops for poor farmers led to Asia's famine-defusing Green Revolution four decades ago, died Saturday night after a long battle with cancer. He was 95.
Dr. Borlaug, who was widely credited with saving hundreds of millions of people from starvation, upended conventional wisdom among scientists of his era both by the way he created super strains of wheat that have since spread across much of the developing world, and by proving that the world's harvests can grow faster than the human population. His breeding techniques are now routinely embraced by the world's biggest seed companies and by some estimates have created billions of dollars of crop value.
Yet Dr. Borlaug died, surrounded by family, in his modest home in Dallas. He had had little interest in patenting his inventions. Despite a raft of awards - he was one of a handful of people to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom - he was far more of a celebrity in Latin American and Asia, where he spent most of his life and where a return visit could generate front-page headlines...
... By the 1950s, Mexico's wheat yields were so high that the plants had to be bred so they wouldn't fall over. Shuttle breeding had the unintended effort of creating wheat strains far more tolerant of changes in climate and day length than typical wheat. So, when the soaring populations of India and Pakistan overwhelmed those countries' farming sectors in the 1960s, threatening widespread famine, Dr. Borlaug had a solution ready. The farmers of the Yaqui Valley would grow prosperous selling seed for high-yielding wheat throughout Asia. The agricultural boom that spread across Asia in the 1970s and 1980s helped set the stage for the region's economic expansion.
When the Nobel Committee awarded Dr. Borlaug the 1970 Peace Prize, it said that the plant breeder had "turned pessimism into optimism in the dramatic race between population explosion and our production of food."
In his Nobel address, Dr. Borlaug warned that the Green Revolution hadn't ended the threat of famine, but had given world powers a few extra decades to find the solution. "We will be guilty of criminal negligence, without extenuation, if we permit future famines," he said.
But as the prospect of famine receded in the 1980s, Dr. Borlaug's idea - helping the poorest farmers grow enough to feed their families - made him a lightening rod. Environmentalist s opposed the Green Revolution's heavy use of fertilizer and chemicals to boost crop production. And Western donors began demanding fiscal discipline from poor nations, which meant less government support for the sorts of work carried out by Dr. Borlaug. Spending on agricultural development plunged.
Dr. Borlaug continued to travel the world into his 90s, exhorting young scientists to carry on the principles of the Green Revolution, especially in Africa. And earlier this decade, as the number of hungry began to swell again, Dr. Borlaug saw his ideas gain renewed traction. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation allied with the Rockefeller Foundation to form the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. And the Obama administration has launched a global food security initiative, aiming to boost agriculture development and reduce hunger in the developing world.
Read entire article at The Wall Street Journal
Dr. Borlaug, who was widely credited with saving hundreds of millions of people from starvation, upended conventional wisdom among scientists of his era both by the way he created super strains of wheat that have since spread across much of the developing world, and by proving that the world's harvests can grow faster than the human population. His breeding techniques are now routinely embraced by the world's biggest seed companies and by some estimates have created billions of dollars of crop value.
Yet Dr. Borlaug died, surrounded by family, in his modest home in Dallas. He had had little interest in patenting his inventions. Despite a raft of awards - he was one of a handful of people to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom - he was far more of a celebrity in Latin American and Asia, where he spent most of his life and where a return visit could generate front-page headlines...
... By the 1950s, Mexico's wheat yields were so high that the plants had to be bred so they wouldn't fall over. Shuttle breeding had the unintended effort of creating wheat strains far more tolerant of changes in climate and day length than typical wheat. So, when the soaring populations of India and Pakistan overwhelmed those countries' farming sectors in the 1960s, threatening widespread famine, Dr. Borlaug had a solution ready. The farmers of the Yaqui Valley would grow prosperous selling seed for high-yielding wheat throughout Asia. The agricultural boom that spread across Asia in the 1970s and 1980s helped set the stage for the region's economic expansion.
When the Nobel Committee awarded Dr. Borlaug the 1970 Peace Prize, it said that the plant breeder had "turned pessimism into optimism in the dramatic race between population explosion and our production of food."
In his Nobel address, Dr. Borlaug warned that the Green Revolution hadn't ended the threat of famine, but had given world powers a few extra decades to find the solution. "We will be guilty of criminal negligence, without extenuation, if we permit future famines," he said.
But as the prospect of famine receded in the 1980s, Dr. Borlaug's idea - helping the poorest farmers grow enough to feed their families - made him a lightening rod. Environmentalist s opposed the Green Revolution's heavy use of fertilizer and chemicals to boost crop production. And Western donors began demanding fiscal discipline from poor nations, which meant less government support for the sorts of work carried out by Dr. Borlaug. Spending on agricultural development plunged.
Dr. Borlaug continued to travel the world into his 90s, exhorting young scientists to carry on the principles of the Green Revolution, especially in Africa. And earlier this decade, as the number of hungry began to swell again, Dr. Borlaug saw his ideas gain renewed traction. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation allied with the Rockefeller Foundation to form the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. And the Obama administration has launched a global food security initiative, aiming to boost agriculture development and reduce hunger in the developing world.