The Greatest Man You’ve Never Heard Of: Norman Borlaug, An American Hero

CAPCON ^ | 12 Sep 2012 | Jarrett Skorup

[Rummyfan]

Called "arguably the greatest American in the 20th century," during his 95 years, Norman Borlaug probably saved more lives than any other person.

He is one of just six people to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And yet Borlaug, who died three years ago today, is scarcely known in his own country.

Born in Iowa in 1914, Borlaug spent most of his life in impoverished nations inventing, improving and teaching the "Green Revolution." His idea was simple: Make developing countries self sufficient in food by teaching them how to use modern agricultural techniques that are easy to implement. Borlaug spent most of his time in Mexico, Pakistan and India, and focused on five areas: crop cultivars (seeds), irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides and mechanization. His successes were remarkable.

[Rummyfan]

....

Biologist Paul Ehrlich's 1968 bestseller "The Population Bomb" typified this attitude. Ehrlich wrote, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." He later said, "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971," and "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980." Required reading at many colleges, Ehrlich's book stated that it was "a fantasy" that India would "ever" feed itself.

....

In the introduction to a 2000 interview with Borlaug, Reason magazine science correspondent Ronald Bailey wrote, "In Pakistan, wheat yields rose from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 8.4 million in 1970. In India, they rose from 12.3 million tons to 20 million. And the yields continue to increase. Last year [1999], India harvested a record 73.5 million tons of wheat, up 11.5 percent from 1998. Since Ehrlich's dire predictions in 1968, India's population has more than doubled, its wheat production has more than tripled, and its economy has grown nine-fold."

In spite of Ehrlich's claims, Borlaug had India feeding itself within a mere five years of his book release

[James C. Bennett]

‘Father of India’s Green Revolution’ given Padma Vibhushan

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/24borlaug.htm?q=np&file=.htm

Rediff India

August 24, 2006

Dr Norman Borlaug, 92, known as the father of India’s Green Revolution, was presented the Padma Vibhushan today by India’s ambassador R K Bhatia in Mexico City. The ceremony took place at a formal luncheon sponsored by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, in the presence of 350 agricultural scientists from all kinds of disciplines from many countries.

Also present at the event was Mexican Secretary of Agriculture Franciso Javier Mayorga and a number of dignitaries.

In an interview with Rediff.com, Borlaug, a Nobel Laureate (1970), said he deems it his greatest privilege to receive this award from the Indian government and it takes him back to 1965, when India was on the verge of famine. It was then he started working with Indian and Mexican scientists to introduce high-yielding varieties of wheat in India.

He said he had to work with a large number of people, especially Dr M S Swaminathan, then with the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, and Agricultural Minister C Subramaniam, to persuade the Indian government to accept high-yielding varieties of wheat. That happened when India finally agreed to import from Mexico 18,000 tonnes of the seeds, which marked the beginning of the Green Revolution.

According to Borlaug, there was also an active role in this played by Siva Raman, then Union Secretary of Agriculture. “I used to call them 3 S’s - Subramaniam, Swaminathan and Sivaraman,” Borlaug said.

While presenting the Padma Vibhushan, the highest award conferred by India on foreigners, Ambassador Bhatia said, “It was on the research stations and farmers’ fields in Mexico that Dr Borlaug developed successive generations of wheat varieties with broad and stable disease resistance, broad adaptation to growing conditions across many degrees of latitude, and with exceedingly high yield potential. These wheat and improved crop management practices transformed agricultural production” in several counties, including India, “sparking what is known as Green Revolution.”

Dr Borlaug has been awarded 57 honorary doctorates and belongs to the academia of science in 12 nations, noted Bhatia.

The ambassador said when he wrote to Borlaug a few months back about the Padma Vibhushan, he sent back a communication “conveying his willingness to accept it ‘in the name of hundreds of Indian scientists, policy-makers and millions of farmers, without whom there would have been no Green Revolution`.” Borlaug also wrote: ‘I am deeply grateful to be so honored by my beloved country India’.

In his brief remarks Mexico’s Agricultural Secretary Mayorga noted that Dr Borlaug “has saved more lives in the history of mankind,” through his high-yielding varieties of wheat and other food crops.

Borlaug himself was critical of some bureaucrats and reporters in India who, when he had tried to persuade India to accept his high-yielding varieties of wheat, were very critical of him, even asking when ‘India would get rid of this man’.

“These were people who had never in their lifetime produced a single kilo of foodgrains,” Borloug said in humour. “Many people in India are still against new technology. We should go back to the olden days, say 1950s, when the world population was about two billion people. Now we are 6.4 billion. What was adequate then cannot be adequate now. Many of these people in India and elsewhere are thinking in theoretical terms. They haven’t lived round hunger and miserable people.”

The chief organizer of the luncheon event was Masaru Iwanaga, director-general of CIMMYT. He was happy that Borlaug was awarded the Padma Vibhushan at his institute. While happy that India is self-sufficient in food production, he expressed concern that India may have to, like Japan and China, import large quantities of wheat and that would by implication increase food prices internationally, and developing countries will not take that kindly.

Despite all the talk about Green Revolution, the task in India hasn’t ended. India’s wheat production was 11 million tonnes in 1960s. It reached 75 million tonnes by the turn of the century but production is not keeping pace with the increasing population, Borlaug said.

In this respect, Iwanaga was concerned that India may have to soon resort to import of foodgrains.

Borlaug agreed: “I am sure India will have to soon import wheat. Buffer stocks are declining in the country and those stocks can only be replenished through import.”

When Borlaug started going to India in the mid-1960s, his three slogans were: ‘Credit to farmers 6 weeks before the crop’; ‘Fertiliser’; and ‘fair price to farmers. He was sad that “farmers in India are still not getting fair price for their produce, which has a negative impact on food production.”

Ambassador Bhatia was delighted to present the Padma Vibhushan to Borlaug. “This is the first time [in my long diplomatic career] that I had this privilege to exercise [of presenting the award]. Naturally as ambassador I represent the President of the Republic. It is kind of him to ask me to perform this role. It was also a matter of both pride and happiness that one was doing this for a great cause and to a great man.”

“With the establishment of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico in 1966, Dr Borlaug assumed leadership of the Wheat Program, a position he held until his ‘official’ retirement in 1979. Since 1984, Dr Borlaug has been the Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture in Texas A&M University, where he teaches one semester each year. Since 1986, he has also been the President of the Sasakawa Africa Association, and leader of the Sasakawa-Global agricultural program in sub-Saharan Africa.”

The luncheon organized by the CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre) was also part of the International Plant Breeding Symposium the Institute had sponsored with several hundreds agricultural scientists from dozens of countries attending.

At the end of the Padma Vibhushan presentation and his acceptance speech, a large number of people mobbed Borlaug, to have their photographs clicked with him, as if he was a Hollywood star. In a sense, he is undoubtedly so.

---

India’s wheat production in 2011-12 was a record 93.9 million tonnes.

[BwanaNdege]

This was posted a month or so ago.

Great article then, great now.

Why America is treated to an endless stream of Michael Jackson tributes, etc and never shown great people like this.

The adults gave up control of the media and education half a century or more ago. Now people are bombarded with what are euphemistically called “adult” entertainments.

Now, few ever grow up, but instead try to retain their adolescence, allowing their lives to be ruled by hormones (or faint memories thereof). They go through life without ever experiencing the joy given by the accomplishment of worthy deeds, let alone great ones.

Norman Borlaug, a hero for the world!

[Impala64ssa]

Why America is treated to an endless stream of Michael Jackson tributes
Because Mr. Borlaug couldn't moon-walk like Mikey./s

[Sherman Logan]

Widely considered a villain in environmentalist and leftist circles.

They admit he increased crop yields. But.

Artificial fertilizer destroys soils.

Irrigation and pesticides destroy natural environments.

The methods are too expensive for most farmers in poor countries. They can’t compete.

Genetic modification of food crops is evil.

The Green Revolution is a plot to enslave indigenous peoples to Big Business.

Mechanization of farming increases energy input into food and causes Global Warming.

Native cultures are destroyed when they rise above subsistence levels.

Some of these criticisms are true, at least partially.

[Pontiac]

When Borlaug started going to India in the mid-1960s, his three slogans were: ‘Credit to farmers 6 weeks before the crop’; ‘Fertiliser’; and ‘fair price to farmers. He was sad that “farmers in India are still not getting fair price for their produce, which has a negative impact on food production.”

Perhaps someone can tell me what he meant here. Was he against price controls on grain?

Was he a free market man or more of a Fair Trade man?

[JCBreckenridge]

India puts export restrictions on it’s grain preventing it’s farmers from selling abroad. This artificially depresses both demand and the price of grain in India.

[Pontiac]

1933 was the watershed, which makes Nixon anticlamactic.

Agreed

But the ability for foreign states to be able to redeam dollars for gold was the last disincentive for the US government to adhere to a non-inflationary monetary policy.

Once the US did not have to state what the exchange rate for gold was there was no reason not to go off the deep end on spending.

That was the entire reason Nixon and the Democrats decided that the gold standard had to go. They already knew that they had gone too far to turn back with making tough choices that politically they did not want to make.

They could not keep exchanging gold for dollars at fire sale prices and they did not want to suffer the humiliation of devaluing the dollar publicly.

[BwanaNdege]

“Native cultures are destroyed when they rise above subsistence levels.”

Tripe like this is written by “anthropologists” who raise children like Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.

My advice to them is try living at “subsistence levels” for three to five years with no safety net or escape route when they have a poor crop.

“The methods are too expensive for most farmers in poor countries. They can’t compete.”

Have you priced “organic foods” lately? Or Japanese “traditional indigenous” rice. Besides, “most farmers” in poor countries are selling to neighbors. The price of their export crops is most affected by their government’s “central planning”, at least in Africa.

BTW, I’ve seen a lot of people survive because of Jim Rowland’s work in the 1970’s & 80’s developing or improving drought resistant crops in the Karamoja region of NE Uganda.

[virgil283]

Enjoyed that RF. “Ehrlich’s claims” from his comfortable office show up by a man who’s actually there raising food. “He who has bread has many problems. He who has no bread has only one problem.”

[GladesGuru]

The Leftists are correct! Ban all modern farming in the Third and Turd World. Let ‘em starve.

Why?

‘Cause the difference between a First World nation and a Third or Turd World nation is that if we rebuild a First World nation such as we did after WW II, those people don’t act out their “Inner Savage” on our embassies.

Sorry, Leftists, but history is clear - the only good Third Worlder is a dead one.

Ditto (but more so) for Turd Worlders.

[JimRed]

‘Father of India’s Green Revolution’...

Unfortunately, those words today have a much different and very dangerous meaning.

[Mase]

Perhaps someone can tell me what he meant here. Was he against price controls on grain?

Was he a free market man or more of a Fair Trade man?

Borlaug was a staunch proponent of free markets. He watched helplessly for much of his career while government manipulated markets - for their own gain or just out of ideological idiocy - and millions, mostly children, starved. He worked tirelessly to engineer crops that would withstand disease and drought so that people could eat. However, his biggest challenge was dealing with corrupt "government" that cared more about consolidating their power, via food, than they did about feeding their people.

Borlaug was a proud conservative and is absolutely to most important American nobody knows. He humbly accepted his Nobel prize and immediately went back to the fields in some third world hell hole. Compare the actions of this man to those of our narcissist president.

Every elementary, middle and high school student should be required to learn about Dr. Borlaug. Instead, the books are filled with stories that shower praise on scum like Rachel Carson who is, in contrast, responsible for killing millions, mostly children.

The left is evil. Borlaug was well aware of this fact.

[Sherman Logan]

I quite agree with you. I didn't say I approved of these claims, merely that they are ones environmentalists make. Which they do.

“Native cultures are destroyed when they rise above subsistence levels.”

This is absolutely correct. If your entire culture is based on desperately trying to grow enough food to survive another year, moving beyond this stage will cause huge changes to your culture. When its members move into the modern world, by definition primitive cultures are destroyed.

Leftist anthropologists (most of them) want to keep these people's cultures intact so they can study them, much like animals in a zoo.

With rare exceptions, "primitive" peoples given the choice gleefully abandon the lifestyle the anthropologists want them to maintain. Which doesn't mean their doing so always turns out well.

[BwanaNdege]

Excellent assessment!

The ironic thing is that sometimes leftist want to forcibly move people BACK into a subsistence lifestyle as in Pol Pot in Cambodia.

We all know how that brilliant idea worked out.

My family & I worked with a hunter-gatherer tribe in Uganda back in the mid-1980’s. Our goals included introducing the plow, wheel, hand cranked maize grinder, weaving, rope-making and making a simple form of bread (chapatis-flour tortillas). They were very enthusiastic about acquiring these new skills and technologies.

Unfortunately, an ambush by fleeing elements of the just-overthrown army put a halt to all our “insensitive, culture destroying” plans. Thankfully, other than a few repercussions from the severe scare, Mrs. BN and the kids were all fine. Dad was a little PO’d for awhile, though. ;-)