Biography
A central figure in the "green revolution", Norman Ernest Borlaug (March 25, 1914- ) was born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, to Henry and Clara Borlaug. For the past twenty-seven years he has collaborated with Mexican scientists on problems of wheat improvement; for the last ten or so of those years he has also collaborated with scientists from other parts of the world, especially from India and Pakistan, in adapting the new wheats to new lands and in gaining acceptance for their production. An eclectic, pragmatic, goal-oriented scientist, he accepts and discards methods or results in a constant search for more fruitful and effective ones, while at the same time avoiding the pursuit of what he calls "academic butterflies". A vigorous man who can perform prodigies of manual labor in the fields, he brings to his work the body and competitive spirit of the trained athlete, which indeed he was in his high school and college days.
After completing his primary and secondary education in Cresco, Borlaug enrolled in the University of Minnesota where he studied forestry. Immediately before and immediately after receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in 1937, he worked for the U.S. Forestry Service at stations in Massachusetts and Idaho. Returning to the University of Minnesota to study plant pathology, he received the master's degree in 1939 and the doctorate in 1942.
From 1942 to 1944, he was a microbiologist on the staff of the du Pont de Nemours Foundation where he was in charge of research on industrial and agricultural bactericides, fungicides, and preservatives.
In 1944 he accepted an appointment as geneticist and plant pathologist assigned the task of organizing and directing the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program in Mexico. This program, a joint undertaking by the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation, involved scientific research in genetics, plant breeding, plant pathology, entomology, agronomy, soil science, and cereal technology. Within twenty years he was spectacularly successful in finding a high-yielding short-strawed, disease-resistant wheat.
To his scientific goal he soon added that of the practical humanitarian: arranging to put the new cereal strains into extensive production in order to feed the hungry people of the world - and thus providing, as he says, "a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation," a breathing space in which to deal with the "Population Monster" and the subsequent environmental and social ills that too often lead to conflict between men and between nations. Statistics on the vast acreage planted with the new wheat and on the revolutionary yields harvested in Mexico, India, and Pakistan are given in the presentation speech by Mrs. Lionaes and in the Nobel lecture by Dr. Borlaug. Well advanced, also, is the use of the new wheat in six Latin American countries, six in the Near and Middle East, several in Africa.
When the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in cooperation with the Mexican government established the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), an autonomous international research training institute having an international board of trustees and staff, Dr. Borlaug was made director of its International Wheat Improvement Program. In this capacity he has been able to realize more fully a third objective, that of training young scientists in research and production methods. From his earliest days in Mexico he has, to be sure, carried on an intern program, but with the establishment of the Center, he has been able to reach out internationally. In the last seven years some 1940 young scientists from sixteen or so countries (the figures constantly move upward) have studied and worked at the Center.
Dr. Borlaug is presently participating in extensive experimentation with triticale, a man-made species of grain derived from a cross between wheat rye that shows promise of being superior to either wheat or rye in productivity and nutritional quality.
In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Borlaug has received extensive recognition from universities and organizations in six countries: Canada, India, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan, the United States. In 1968 he received an especially satisfying tribute when the people of Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico, in whose area he did some of his first experimenting, named a street in his honor.
Borlaug for the first time proved that integrated research in agriculture could help increase the food grain production of a country several folds. Apart from his scientific devotion he was very kind to poor hungry people. He believed in the concept that food is the primary need of human being and it is every body's right to get sufficient food. Just after his success in Mexico he paid his attention to the food problem of third world countries. He became busy in spreading his experimental results and revolutionary agricultural concept in such countries.
In the beginning of 1960 when India was facing food problem, on Dr. M. Swaminathan's advice Indian government invited Dr. Borlaug. During his visit Dr. Borlaug gave some seeds of his semi-dwarf wheat variety and recommended to grow it under improved management system. He also suggested to improve the agricultural infrastructure of the country. Following Borlaug's suggestions Indian agriculture improved and within 1974 India became self sufficient in food grain production and soon after became an exporting country. Borlaug's collaboration with Pakistan helped to increase her wheat production 2-3 times and in this way many countries took part in Green Revolution.
Rockefeller Foundation realized the significance of Borlaug's research and in 1959 Borlaug's working institute turned into an international institute, which in 1963 became International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT). Realizing the success of Dr. Borlaug and his team Rockefeller Foundation in collaboration with Philippines Government built up another international institute (IRRI)= International Rice Research Institute) for improvement of another important food crop, rice. Dr. Borlaug helped in outlining the different improvement programmes of this research institute. Following the similar procedure a high yielding dwarf rice variety, IR 8 was developed from a cross between Indonesian, Dee-geo-woo-gen and Chinese, Peta varieties. This newly developed variety out-yielded the traditional varieties by 2-3 folds under high irrigation and fertilizer condition. This rice variety was introduced to different countries including Bangladesh and rice production in these countries increased 2-3 folds on an average.
Green Revolution saved millions of hungry people worldwide providing food grains. It was estimated that Borlaug's discoveries saved over 245 million lives worldwide. In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, he was honoured with President Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal. Until his death he was associated with agricultural research particularly with extensive experimentation with triticale, a man-made species of grain derived from a cross between wheat and rye that shows promise of being superior to either wheat or rye in production and quality.
Dr Borlaug received extensive recognition from universities and organisations in six countries: Canada, India, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan, the United States. In 1968 he received an especially satisfying tribute when the people of Ciudad Obregon, Sonora of Mexico, where he did some of his first experiments, named a street in his honour. Remembering his contribution to Indian agriculture the Indian government honored Dr Borlaug with Padma Bhusan.
However, critics put some questions in front of him particularly those related to the erosion of biodiversity, bad effects of chemical fertilizers and insecticides. But Borlaug said at that time there was no other alternative to save millions of hungry people from shortage of food grain. He shattered Malthusian theory that relates to imbalance between population growth and food production. He of course always gave importance to population control plans.
Bangladesh is an agricultural country. Dr Borlaug's contribution to our agricultural development not too meagre.
We are also the beneficiary of Green Revolution. Today we are using high yielding wheat and rice varieties. Our cereal grain production now is 2-3 times higher than that of 1971. So let us also pay tribute to this great humanitarian agricultural scientist.
Selected Bibliography
Borlaug, Norman E., "The Impact of Agricultural Research on Mexican Wheat Production", Transactions of the New York Academy of Science, 20 (1958) 278-295.
Borlaug, Norman E., "Mexican Wheat Production and Its Role in the Epidemiology of Stem Rust in North America", Phytopathology, 44 (1954) 398-404.
Borlaug, Norman E., Wheat Breeding and Its Impact on World Food Supply. Public lecture at the Third International Wheat Genetics Symposium, August 5-9, 1968. Canberra, Australia, Australian Academy of Science, 1968.
Borlaug, Norman E., "Wheat, Rust, and People", Phytopathology, 55 (1965) 1088-1098.
Borlaug, Norman E., and others, "A Green Revolution Yields a Golden Harvest", Columbia Journal of World Business, 4 (September-October, 1969) 9-19.
Brown, Lester R., "The Agricultural Revolution in Asia", Foreign Affairs, 46 (July, 1968) 688 - 698.
Brown, Lester R., Seeds of Change: The Green Revolution and Development in the 1970's. New York, Praeger, 1970. Contains a bibliography.
Freeman, Orville, World without Hunger. New York, Praeger, 1968.
The Green Revolution: A Symposium on Science and Foreign Policy. Proceedings before the Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Developments of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 91st Congress, First Session, December 5, 1969 (#38-612) J. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970.
Hardin, Clifford M., ed., Overcoming World Hunger. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1969.
Johnson, David Gale, The Struggle against World Hunger. New York, Foreign Policy Association, 1967.
Ladejinsky, Wolf, "Ironies of India's Green Revolution", Foreign Affairs, 48 (July, 1970) 758-768.
Myrdal, Gunnar, The Challenge of World Poverty: A World Anti-Poverty Program in Outline, chap. 4, "Agriculture " pp. 78-138. New York, Pantheon Books, 1970.
Paarlberg, Don, Norman Borlaug: Hunger Fighter. Foreign Economic Development Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating with the U.S. Agency for International Development (PA 969). Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970.
"Statement to the Press" from Dr. J. George Harrar, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. New York, The Rockefeller Foundation, October 21, 1970.
"U.S. Agronomist Gets Nobel Peace Prize", the New York Times (October 22, 1970) 1.
Wharton, Clifton R., Jr.,"The Green Revolution: Cornucopia or Pandora's Box", Foreign Affairs, 47 (April, 1969) 464-476.
From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Norman Borlaug died on 12 September, 2009.
The ticking clock
Genetic engineering of plants greatly excited him. The risks, he said, were rubbish, unproven by science, while the potential benefits were endless. The transfer of useful characteristics might now take weeks, rather than decades. More lives would be saved. The gene for rust-resistance in rice, for example, might be put into all other cereals. He hoped he might live to see it.
Meanwhile what he called the “Population Monster” was breathing down his neck, or rather ticking, like Captain Hook’s crocodile. Every second brought two more people, crying to be fed. By 2050, he wrote in 2005, the world would need to double its food supply. Some 800m were malnourished as it was. Mr Borlaug loved to talk of reaching for the stars, but his day-to-day motto was an earthly one. Get the plough. Start growing now.
Nobel Peace Prize
For his contributions to the world food supply, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Norwegian officials notified his wife in Mexico City at 4:00 am, but Borlaug had already left for the test fields in the Toluca valley, about 40 miles (65 km) west of Mexico City. A chauffeur took her to the fields to inform her husband. According to his daughter, Jeanie Laube, "My mom said, 'You won the Nobel Peace Prize,' and he said, 'No, I haven't', ... It took some convincing ... He thought the whole thing was a hoax".[10] He was awarded the prize on December 10. In his Nobel Lecture the following day, he speculated on his award: "When the Nobel Peace Prize Committee designated me the recipient of the 1970 award for my contribution to the 'green revolution', they were in effect, I believe, selecting an individual to symbolize the vital role of agriculture and food production in a world that is hungry, both for bread and for peace".[23]
[edit] Borlaug hypothesis
Borlaug continually advocated increasing crop yields as a means to curb deforestation. The large role he played in both increasing crop yields and promoting this view has led to this methodology being called by agricultural economists the "Borlaug hypothesis", namely that increasing the productivity of agriculture on the best farmland can help control deforestation by reducing the demand for new farmland. According to this view, assuming that global food demand is on the rise, restricting crop usage to traditional low-yield methods would also require at least one of the following: the world population to decrease, either voluntarily or as a result of mass starvations; or the conversion of forest land into crop land. It is thus argued that high-yield techniques are ultimately saving ecosystems from destruction. On a global scale, this view holds strictly true ceteris paribus, if all land either consists of forests or is used for agriculture. But other land uses exist, such as urban areas, pasture, or fallow, so further research is necessary to ascertain what land has been converted for what purposes, in order to determine how true this view remains. Increased profits from high-yield production may also induce cropland expansion in any case, although as world food needs decrease, this expansion may decrease as well.[24]
[edit] Criticisms and his view of critics
Borlaug's name is nearly synonymous with the Green Revolution, against which many criticisms have been mounted over the decades by environmentalists, nutritionists, progressives, and economists. Throughout his years of research, Borlaug's programs often faced opposition by people who consider genetic crossbreeding to be unnatural or to have negative effects.[25] Borlaug's work has been criticized for bringing large-scale monoculture, input-intensive farming techniques to countries that had previously relied on subsistence farming.[26] These farming techniques reap large profits for U.S. agribusiness and agrochemical corporations such as Monsanto Company and have been criticized for widening social inequality in the countries owing to uneven food distribution while forcing a capitalist agenda of U.S. corporations onto countries that had undergone land reform.[27]
Other concerns of his critics and critics of biotechnology in general include: that the construction of roads in populated third-world areas could lead to the destruction of wilderness; the crossing of genetic barriers; the inability of crops to fulfill all nutritional requirements; the decreased biodiversity from planting a small number of varieties; the environmental and economic effects of inorganic fertilizer and pesticides; the amount of herbicide sprayed on fields of herbicide-resistant crops.[28]
Borlaug dismissed most claims of critics, but did take certain concerns seriously. He stated that his work has been "a change in the right direction, but it has not transformed the world into a Utopia".[29] Of environmental lobbyists he stated, "some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things".[30]
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