Norman Ernest Borlaug was born on March 25, 1914. He grew up on his family's farm in Saude, Iowa. Although he initially failed the entrance exam for the University of Minnesota, after two quarters of college, he transferred to the forestry program of the U of M. There, he was part of the school wrestling team, and kept his coach's advice to always give 105 percent. Not having much money, Borlaug had to work while he was in university; one of these jobs was as a leader in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a government organization giving work opportunities for young men from unemployed families. This was during the Great Depression, and many of his workers were malnourished. Concerned about these conditions, he studied plant pathology (plant disease) instead of his first choice, forestry, receiving his bachelor of science degree in 1935 and his doctorate in 1942.Upon leaving university, Borlaug joined The Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic humanitarian organization. His task: with a small team, to help develop agriculture in Latin America, by creating a productive wheat strain with disease resistance, which was also adaptable. By crossing different wheat strains over the course of several years, he was able to develop resistant, strong, productive strains, with short, thick stems to prevent them from collapsing under the wheat's weight. These seeds were distributed throughout Mexico and, by 1963, Borlaug's wheat made up 95% of Mexico's wheat production. Mexico's wheat harvest also was six times larger than it had been in 1944. In 20 years, Borlaug had turned Mexico from a grain importer to an exporter.
Borlaug didn't stop there however. In 1963 The Rockefeller Foundation sent him to India and Pakistan, which were facing malnutrition problems at the time. At first, his help was resisted; but in 1965, when famine struck, he was welcomed. Using similar strains of wheat to the ones in Mexico, Pakistan became self-sufficient in wheat production in 1968. India, whose production doubled, was nearly self-sufficient by 1970. Today, India and Pakistan's wheat growth rate is increasing faster than their population growth rate. Borlaug started similar programs in Africa in the 1980s. In 1984, he set up the SAA (Sasakawa Africa Association) with Japanese philanthropist Ryoichi Sasakawa, to continue his work in Africa training farmers. As a result, food production there has increased dramatically. Environmentalists began to oppose his methods, with the argument that spreading the same few strains of wheat worldwide was not good for biodiversity. Borlaug countered the argument by stating that, if said environmentalists were starving in third-world countries, they, too, would want food and would despise those in the western world trying to oppose that. He continued his work across the globe until his illness and death on September 12, 2009, at the age of 95. In 1970, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his successes in increasing the world's food supply. At first, he believed it to be a hoax; but he had indeed won it for saving the lives of millions, even hundreds of millions across the globe. Among the other awards that he has received are the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, the highest civilian award given by the President of the US, and the Congressional Gold Medal, an award of similar prestige given by Congress, in 2007. For fifty-two years, Dr. Norman Borlaug has been helping to provide more food to the most needy areas of the world. But perhaps of greater importance, this distinguished scientist-philosopher has been demonstrating practical ways to give people of the entire world a higher quality of life ...The passion that drives Dr. Borlaug's life is an inspiration for all of us to follow. It has been an honor to collaborate with Dr. Borlaug. Dr. Borlaug's long and remarkable life, we also celebrate the long and productive lives that his achievements have made possible for so many millions of people around the world. .Dr. Norman Borlaug was the father of the Green Revolution that transformed much of the hungry Third World. Dr. Borlaug’s scientific leadership not only saved people from starvation, but the high-yield seeds he bred saved millions of square miles of wildlife from being plowed down. He is one of the great men of our age.Norman Borlaug is the living embodiment of the human quest for a hunger free world.
His life is his message." "Some credit him with saving more human lives than any other person in history."
It is very likely that Dr. Borlaug is directly responsible for saving more lives than anyone else in the twentieth century.......Dr. Borlaug has never stopped fighting, teaching, inventing, or caring.....The world owes Dr. Borlaug endless amounts of gratitude" Dr. Norman Borlaugu is the first person in history to save a billion human lives. But he must also get credit for saving the wild creatures and diverse plant species on 12 million square miles of global forest that would long since have been plowed down without the high-yield farming he pioneered. The two accomplishments combined make him dramatically unique. The Population Bomb ... But Borlaug and his team were already engaged in the kind of crash program that Ehrlich declared wouldn't work. Their dwarf wheat varieties resisted a wide spectrum of plant pests and diseases and produced two to three times more grain than the traditional varieties ..., is responsible for much of the progress humanity has ma de against hunger.Though barely known in the country of his birth, elsewhere in the world Norman Borlaug is widely considered to be among the leading Americans of our age ... Norman Borlaug has already saved more lives than any other person who ever lived. The form of agriculture that Borlaug preaches may have prevented a billion deaths.At a time when doom-sayers were hopping around saying everyone was going to starve, Norman was working. He moved to Mexico and lived among the people there until he figured out how to improve the output of the farmers. So that saved a million lives. The he packed up his family and moved to India, where in spite of a war with Pakistan, he managed to introduce new wheat strains that quadrupled their food output. So that saved another million. You get it? But he wasn't done. He did the same thing with a new rice in China. He's doing the same thing in Afica -- as much of Africa as he's allowed to visit. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1970, they said he had saved a billion people. That's BILLION!
Norman is the greatest human being, and you probably never heard of him.
Thanks to the Green Revolution, the real price of food is half or less than it was in 1960 which means those who spend the highest portion of their income on food - the urban and non-farm rural poor -- garner the most benefit from it.Borlaug's work saved the Indian sub-continent from mass starvation. In his 90 years on this planet its human population has grown from about one billion to more than six billion. Without the hybrid wheats it was Borlaug's life's mission to develop and promote among the world's poorest farmers, few believe that this population could have been sustained.As a result of [Borlaug's] work, a billion people now exist who otherwise would have starved to death, died of starvation-related diseases, or never have been born. Borlaug is one of the great humanitarians of the 20th Century - and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for a lifetime of work feeding a hungry world. The breeds of wheat he developed - with strong disease resistance, high yield potential and the ability to withstand poor growing conditions - led the "Green Revolution" that saved literally hundreds of millions of lives in developing nations that were prone to terrible famines.He is credited with starting the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s and saving millions of lives from starvation. Since 1984, he has been a professor of international agriculture at Texas A&M, where he teaches one semester every year. But he is by no means semi-retired. At 86, he remains as active as ever - carrying his brand of prairie pragmatism to fight hunger around the world and in the classroom. Think big. Fight complacency. That is the essence of his message, whether he's talking to heads of state or college freshmen.Scientist. Teacher. Humanitarian. Nobel Laureate. Father of the Green Revolution
The Man Who Saved More Human Lives Than Any Other
My Favorite expression of legend:..........
If you stretch yourself,
you'll be surprised how much you can do.
Get a little stardust on your hands,
and you'll be surprised what that can do for you
. And not only for you
but also for your family,
the state,
the nation
and the people of the world.--Neelanjan
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