Norman E. Borlaug, the plant scientist who did more than anyone else in the 20th century to teach the world to feed itself and whose work was credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives, died Saturday night. He was 95 and lived in Dallas.

Dr. Borlaug’s advances in plant breeding led to spectacular success in increasing food production in Latin America and Asia and brought him international acclaim. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He was widely described as the father of the broad agricultural movement called the Green Revolution, though decidedly reluctant to accept the title. “A miserable term,” he said, characteristically shrugging off any air of self-importance.

Yet his work had a far-reaching impact on the lives of millions of people in developing countries. His breeding of high-yielding crop varieties helped to avert mass famines that were widely predicted in the 1960s, altering the course of history. Largely because of his work, countries that had been food deficient, like Mexico and India, became self-sufficient in producing cereal grains.

“More than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world,” the Nobel committee said in presenting him with the Peace Prize. “We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/energy-environment/14borlaug.html?_r=2&hp

"It’s distressing, I can’t help adding, that dead politicians are often canonized in the popular press while most of humanity will go to their graves never hearing the names of, or learning of the contributions of, genuine heroes of humanity such as Norman Borlaug." - Don Boudreaux

9/13/2009 10:06:57 AM

Great Man.

9/13/2009 3:04:41 PM

Quote :

"Great Man."

9/13/2009 3:46:18 PM

Law of unintended consequences:

http:///message_topic.aspx?topic=575813

Convenient that the Monsanto thread just came up.

Still, I don't mean to rag on this guy. He's done the greatest amount of good of... pretty much any single individual in all of history. Think back to China's "Great Leap Forward", and how that killed as many people as in WWII and you realize that if the rest of the world didn't have the Green Revolution going on in the same era, then that could have happened in India soon afterward, and then in Africa, and then in Latin America. A WWII equivalent of life-loss was entirely in the cards for all of the 20th century, but work of people like Borlaug had staved off those events.

That's saying a lot. The impact this guy had will show to be of cosmic proportions in 100 years.

The fact that a few bad apples (Monsanto) give agribusiness a bad name shouldn't taint his legacy.

But time will tell what will happen to the population bomb. We're loosing topsoil to both conventional and organic farming (but more to the latter). We're going to see the majority of modern fertilizer supported fields age from 40 to 60 years, and if they all happen to expire around the same time, that could be a big problem. Like Borlang, I believe that technology can and should be the solution to these problems coupled with responsible outreach and aid to those most in need. But also similar to Borlang, I think that there are people having a strong effect of derailing that effort. And their numbers are growing.

9/13/2009 8:53:02 PM

How many times does Ehrlich need to be proved wrong before stop talking about population bombs as if it is inevitable? Nothing is inevitable.

9/13/2009 8:57:25 PM

^ and your comment makes it sound like the positive outcome will happen without work. People taking technology for granted can be just as destructive as the doomsayers. People have started expecting things from technology with no connection to what the actual physical feasibility of it is. We could embrace nuclear power and the advanced fuel cycle, but we don't want to. So we turn to technology to give another solution. That solution has another problem, turn to another solution, that's not perfect either, turn to another solution.

We can do it, but only with a half-way intelligent populous and not with our hands tied behind our backs. I don't mean to endorse the book The Population Bomb. Nothing is inevitable, that's exactly my point.

9/13/2009 9:26:40 PM

Quote :

"taint "

9/13/2009 9:30:39 PM

My comment makes no such statement. We have been able to avoid these Malthusian Catastrophes that Ehrlich continually predicts precisely because of man's ability to adapt and change its environment.

9/13/2009 9:33:39 PM

Quote :

"We're loosing topsoil to both conventional and organic farming (but more to the latter). We're going to see the majority of modern fertilizer supported fields age from 40 to 60 years, and if they all happen to expire around the same time, that could be a big problem."

Topsoil is not mythical, it is just dirt with a certain chemical composition, and it is easy to make if you know how and have a free season to do it in. Fields do not expire unless we want them to. We know what causes them to become damaged, and we already know how to fix them. Plants are not as clever as you, they don't know the difference between artificial and natural, and so they do not care where their nutrients come from.

That said, I do not disagree with your premise: just because farming is not a problem, politics is, and if we as a species decided to divert our energies away from economics and towards politics, then the complex systems which support modern civilization can always falter.

9/14/2009 12:30:11 AM

9/16/2009 4:52:52 PM

LoneSnark, thanks for posting this

9/16/2009 5:18:09 PM

it's a sad reflection on society when the general population and (led by) the media morn greatly when a celebrity dies but most people have no idea who this man was or what greatness he did for humanity. (I myself didn't know about him till I did a little digging)

tragic.

RIP.

9/17/2009 12:42:39 PM