Entry: Bill Guyton
Yesterday we learned that one of the most important leaders of our time, Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, had passed away. Referred to as the "Father of the Green Revolution", Dr. Borlaug helped to develop high yielding grain varieties, reducing hunger and leading to improved economic prosperity for thousands of small-scale farmers from around the world. He received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 in recognition for his contributions.
Through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology Fellows Program, his legacy has also helped young cocoa researchers from West Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia to learn more about disease and pest management with leading researchers in the United States. The World Cocoa Foundation is proud to be a partner of this important program. Please see the following blog entries from 2008 and 2009 USDA Cocoa Borlaug Fellows:
Raquel Guerrero, INIAP, Ecuador
James Quiroz, INIAP, Ecuador
Alexis Matute, INIAP, Ecuador
Rhodina Cena, University of Southern Mindanao, the Philippines:
Muhammad Junaid, Hasanuddin University, Indonesia
Rhodina Cena and Muhammad Junaid
Joseph Chuks Anikwe, Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria
Abu Mustapha Dadzie, Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana
Lewis Dobgima Levai, IRAD, Cameroon
Below is an article from the Wall Street Journal which further highlights the career of this extraordinary man.
Norman Borlaug, The Man who Fed the World.
On the day Norman Borlaug was awarded its Peace Prize for 1970, the Nobel Committee observed of the Iowa-born plant scientist that "more than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world." The committee might have added that more than any other single person Borlaug showed that nature is no match for human ingenuity in setting the real limits to growth.
Borlaug, who died Saturday at 95, came of age in the Great Depression, the last period of widespread hunger in U.S. history. The Depression was over by the time Borlaug began his famous experiments, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, with wheat varieties in Mexico in the 1940s. But the specter of global starvation loomed even larger, as advances in medicine and hygiene contributed to population growth without corresponding increases in the means of feeding so many.
Borlaug solved that challenge by developing genetically unique strains of "semidwarf" wheat, and later rice, that raised food yields as much as sixfold. The result was that a country like India was able to feed its own people as its population grew from 500 million in the mid-1960s, when Borlaug's "Green Revolution" began to take effect, to the current 1.16 billion. Today, famines—whether in Zimbabwe, Darfur or North Korea—are politically induced events, not true natural disasters.
In later life, Borlaug was criticized by self-described "greens" whose hostility to technology put them athwart the revolution he had set in motion. Borlaug fired back, warning in these pages that fear-mongering by environmental extremists against synthetic pesticides, inorganic fertilizers and genetically modified foods would again put millions at risk of starvation while damaging the very biodiversity those extremists claimed to protect. In saving so many, Borlaug showed that a genuine green movement doesn't pit man against the Earth, but rather applies human intelligence to exploit the Earth's resources to improve life for everyone.
Comments (1)
It was with a great sense of loss when I heard of Dr. Borlaug death. Millions of people have been influenced by his scientific work, I and other young researchers have benefited through the Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology Fellows Program. I am extremaly grateful to the opportunity and confidence that he gave us. He and his legacy will always remain within our hearts.
Posted by Raquel Guerrero | September 16, 2009 11:35 AM
Posted on September 16, 2009 11:35