Norman Borlaug

Norman Ernest Borlaug (born 25 March 1914) is an American agricultural scientist, humanitarian, Nobel laureate, and the father of the Green Revolution. Borlaug received his Ph.D. in plant pathology and genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1942. He took up an agricultural research position in Mexico, where he developed semi-dwarf high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties.

Current roles

Following his retirement, Borlaug has continued to actively participate in teaching, research and activism. He spends much of the year based at CIMMYT in Mexico, conducting research, and four months of the year serving at Texas A&M University, where he has been a distinguished professor of international agriculture since 1984. In 1999, the university's Board of Regents named its US$16 million Center for Southern Crop Improvement in honor of Borlaug. He works in the building's Heep Center, and teaches one semester each year.{{mn|greengiant|6}}

Related Topics:
Texas A&M University - 1999

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Production in Africa

In the early 1980s, environmental groups that were opposed to Borlaug's methods campaigned against his planned expansion of efforts into Africa. They prompted the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and the World Bank to stop funding most of his African agriculture projects. Western European governments were persuaded to stop supplying fertilizer to Africa. According to David Seckler, former Director General of the International Water Management Institute, "the environmental community in the 1980s went crazy pressuring the donor countries and the big foundations not to support ideas like inorganic fertilizers for Africa."{{mn|CfGFI|15}}

Related Topics:
1980s - World Bank - International Water Management Institute

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In 1984, during the Ethiopian famine, Ryoichi Sasakawa, the chairman of the Japan Shipbuilding Industry Foundation (now the Nippon Foundation), contacted the semi-retired Borlaug, wondering why the methods used in Asia were not extended to Africa, and hoping Borlaug could help. He managed to convince Borlaug to help with this new, huge effort,{{mn|McFarland2003|4}} and subsequently founded the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) to coordinate the project.

Related Topics:
1984 - Ethiopia - Ryoichi Sasakawa - Nippon Foundation - Sasakawa Africa Association

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The SAA is a research and extension organization that aims to increase food production in African countries that are struggling with food shortages. "I assumed we'd do a few years of research first," Borlaug later recalled, "but after I saw the terrible circumstances there, I said, 'Let's just start growing'."{{mn|CfGFI|15}} Soon, Borlaug and the SAA had projects in seven countries. Yields of maize and sorghum in developed African countries doubled between 1983 and 1985.{{mn|FAO|21}} Yields of wheat, cassava, and cowpeas also increased in these countries. At present, program activities are under way in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Related Topics:
Extension - Sorghum - Cassava - Cowpea - Benin - Burkina Faso - Ethiopia - Ghana - Guinea - Mali - Malawi - Mozambique - Nigeria - Tanzania - Uganda

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Since 1986, Borlaug has been the President of the SAA. That year, Jimmy Carter initiated Sasakawa-Global 2000 (SG 2000), a joint venture between the SAA and the Carter Center's Global 2000 program. The program focuses on food, population and agricultural policy. Since then, over 1 million African farm families have been trained in the SAA's new farming techniques. Those elements that allowed Borlaug's projects to succeed in India and Pakistan, such as well-organized economies and transportation and irrigation systems, are severely lacking throughout Africa, posing additional obstacles to increasing yields. Because of this, Borlaug's initial projects were restricted to developed regions of the continent.

Related Topics:
1986 - Jimmy Carter - Carter Center - Global 2000

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Despite these setbacks, Borlaug has found encouragement. Visiting Ethiopia in 1994, Jimmy Carter won Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's support for a campaign seeking to aid farmers, using the fertilizer diammonium phosphate and Borlaug's methods. The following season, Ethiopia recorded the largest harvests of major crops in history, with a 32% increase in production, and a 15% increase in average yield over the previous season. For Borlaug, the rapid increase in yields suggests that there is still hope for higher food production throughout sub-Saharan Africa.{{mn|CfGFI|15}}

Related Topics:
Ethiopia - 1994 - Meles Zenawi - Diammonium phosphate

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World Food Prize

The World Food Prize is an international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. The prize was created in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, as a way to recognize personal accomplishments, and as a means of education by using the Prize to establish role models for others. The first prize was given to Borlaug's former colleague, M. S. Swaminathan, in 1987, for his work in India. The next year, Swaminathan used the US$250,000 prize to start a research center.

Related Topics:
World Food Prize - M. S. Swaminathan

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Online education

At the DuPont Agriculture & Nutrition Media Day held in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 25, 2000, Borlaug announced the launch of Norman Borlaug University, an Internet-based learning company for the agriculture and food industry personnel. The University was unable to expand the necessary content or customer base, and since late 2001 has been defunct.

Related Topics:
Des Moines, Iowa - September 25

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The future of global farming and food supply

The limited potential for land expansion for cultivation—only 17% of cultivable land produces 90% of the world's food crops {{mn|Foodforthought|22}}—worries Borlaug, who, in March 2005, stated that, "we will have to double the world food supply by 2050." With 85% of future growth in food production having to come from lands already in use, he recommends a multidisciplinary research focus to further increase yields, mainly through increased crop immunity to large-scale diseases, such as the rust fungus, which affects all cereals but rice. His dream is to "transfer rice immunity to cereals such as wheat, maize, sorghum and barley, and transfer bread-wheat proteins (gliadin and glutenin) to other cereals, especially rice and maize".{{mn|Foodforthought|22}}

Related Topics:
March 2005 - Gliadin - Glutenin

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According to Borlaug, "Africa, the former Soviet republics, and the cerrado are the last frontiers. After they are in use, the world will have no additional sizable blocks of arable land left to put into production, unless you are willing to level whole forests, which you should not do. So future food-production increases will have to come from higher yields. And though I have no doubt yields will keep going up, whether they can go up enough to feed the population monster is another matter. Unless progress with agricultural yields remains very strong, the next century will experience sheer human misery that, on a numerical scale, will exceed the worst of everything that has come before".{{mn|CfGFI|15}}

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Besides increasing the worldwide food supply, Borlaug has repeatedly stated that taking steps to decrease the rate of population growth will also be necessary to prevent food shortages. In his Nobel Lecture of 1970, Borlaug stated, "Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the 'Population Monster'...If it continues to increase at the estimated present rate of two percent a year, the world population will reach 6.5 billion by the year 2000. Currently, with each second, or tick of the clock, about 2.2 additional people are added to the world population. The rhythm of increase will accelerate to 2.7, 3.3, and 4.0 for each tick of the clock by 1980, 1990, and 2000, respectively, unless man becomes more realistic and preoccupied about this impending doom. The ticktock of the clock will continually grow louder and more menacing each decade. Where will it all end?"{{mn|Nobel|16}}

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