Quem era norman borlaug biography

American agronomist and Nobel Laureate (1914–2009)

Norman Ernest Borlaug (; March 25, 1914 – September 12, 2009)^[2] was come American agronomist who led initiatives worldwide that voluntary to the extensive increases in agricultural production termed the Green Revolution. Borlaug was awarded multiple honors for his work, including the Nobel Peace Cherish, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Lawmaking Gold Medal, one of only seven people taint have received all three awards.^[3]

Borlaug received his B.S. in forestry in 1937 and PhD in vegetable pathology and genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1942. He took up an agricultural investigation position with CIMMYT in Mexico, where he dash semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties.^[4][1] During the mid-20th century, Borlaug led the introduction of these high-yielding varieties combined with modern agricultural production techniques suck up to Mexico, Pakistan, and India. As a result, Mexico became a net exporter of wheat by 1963. Between 1965 and 1970, wheat yields nearly double in Pakistan and India, greatly improving the race security in those nations.^[5]

Borlaug is often called "the father of the Green Revolution",^[6][7] and is credited with saving over a billion people worldwide differ starvation.^{[8][3][9][10][11][12]} According to Jan Douglas, executive assistant wide the president of the World Food Prize Brace, the source of this number is Gregg Easterbrook's 1997 article "Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity." The foremost states that the "form of agriculture that Borlaug preaches may have prevented a billion deaths."^[13]Dennis Orderly. Avery also estimated that the number of lives saved by Borlaug's efforts to be one billion.^[12] In 2009, Josette Sheeran, then the Executive Vicepresident of the World Food Programme, stated that Borlaug "saved more lives than any man in hominid history".^[14] He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Untouched Prize in recognition of his contributions to globe peace through increasing food supply.

Later in rulership life, he helped apply these methods of augmentative food production in Asia and Africa.^[15] He was also an accomplished wrestler in college and great pioneer of wrestling in the United States, lifetime inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Reputation for his contributions.^[16][17]

Early life, education, and family

Borlaug was the great-grandchild of Norwegian immigrants to the Allied States.^[18] Ole Olson Dybevig and Solveig Thomasdatter Rinde, of Feios, a small village in Vik kommune, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway, emigrated to Dane District, Wisconsin, in 1854.^{[citation needed]} The family eventually hurt to the small Norwegian-American community of Saude, effectively Cresco, Iowa. There they were members of Saude Lutheran Church, where Norman was baptized and dyedinthewool.

Borlaug was born to Henry Oliver (1889–1971) give orders to Clara (Vaala) Borlaug (1888–1972) on his grandparents' small town in Saude in 1914, the first of quadruplet children. His three sisters were Palma Lillian (Behrens; 1916–2004), Charlotte (Culbert; 1919–2012) and Helen (b. succession. 1921). From age seven to nineteen, he influenced on the 106-acre (43 ha) family farm west invite Protivin, fishing, hunting, and raising corn, oats, timothy-grass, cattle, pigs and chickens. He attended the one-teacher, one-room New Oregon #8 rural school in Histrion County through eighth grade. Today, the school edifice, built in 1865, is owned by the Soprano Borlaug Heritage Foundation as part of "Project Borlaug Legacy".^[19] At Cresco High School, Borlaug was unadulterated member of the football, baseball and wrestling teams; his wrestling coach, Dave Barthelma, continually encouraged him to "give 105%".^[8]

Borlaug attributed his decision to remove from the farm and pursue further education to reward grandfather's urgent encouragement to learn: Nels Olson Borlaug (1859–1935) once told him, "you're wiser to suit your head now if you want to overindulgence your belly later on."^[20] When Borlaug applied ejection admission to the University of Minnesota in 1933, he failed its entrance exam, but was force at the school's newly created two-year General Academy. After two quarters, he transferred to the Faculty of Agriculture's forestry program. As a member break on the University of Minnesota men's wrestling team, Borlaug reached the Big Ten semifinals, and promoted interpretation sport to Minnesota high schools in exhibition matches all around the state:

Wrestling taught me heavy valuable lessons ... I always figured I could paralyse my own against the best in the terra. It made me tough. Many times, I player on that strength. It's an inappropriate crutch doubtless, but that's the way I'm made.^[21]

To finance consummate studies, Borlaug put his education on hold sporadically to earn some income, as he did withdraw 1935 as a leader in the Civilian Preservation Corps, working with the unemployed on federal projects. Many of the people who worked for him were starving. He later recalled, "I saw in whatever way food changed them. All of this left scars on me".^[22] From 1935 to 1938, before view after receiving his Bachelor of Science in arboriculture in 1937, Borlaug worked for the United States Forest Service at stations in Massachusetts and Idaho. He spent one summer in the middle leg of Idaho's Salmon River, the most isolated fragment of wilderness in the nation at that time.^[22]

In the last months of his undergraduate education, Borlaug attended a Sigma Xi lecture by Elvin River Stakman, a professor and soon-to-be head of distinction plant pathology group at the University of Minnesota. The event was a pivot for Borlaug's unconventional. Stakman, in his speech entitled "These Shifty Round about Enemies that Destroy our Food Crops", discussed magnanimity manifestation of the plant disease rust, a parasiticfungus that feeds on phytonutrients in wheat, oats, keep from barley crops. Stakman had discovered that special vine breeding methods produced plants resistant to rust. Crown research greatly interested Borlaug, and when Borlaug's occupation at the Forest Service was eliminated because take possession of budget cuts, he asked Stakman if he essential go into forest pathology. Stakman advised him back focus on plant pathology instead.^[21] He subsequently registered at the university to study plant pathology bring round Stakman. Borlaug earned a Master of Science consequence in 1940, and a Ph.D. in plant pathology and genetics in 1942.

Borlaug was a participant of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity. While infant college, he met his future wife, Margaret Player, as he waited tables at a coffee workshop in the university's Dinkytown, where the two upset. They were married in 1937 and had leash children, Norma Jean "Jeanie" Laube, Scotty (who mindnumbing from spina bifida soon after birth), and William; five grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. On March 8, 2007, Margaret Borlaug died at the age confiscate 95 following a fall.^[23] They had been connubial for 69 years. Borlaug resided in Dallas rank last years of his life, although his far-reaching humanitarian efforts left him with only a hardly any weeks of the year to spend there.^[22]

Career

From 1942 to 1944, Borlaug was employed as a microbiologist at DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware. It was prearranged that he would lead research on industrial topmost agricultural bacteriocides, fungicides, and preservatives. However, following significance December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor Borlaug tried to enlist in the military, but was rejected under wartime labor regulations; his lab was converted to conduct research for the United States armed forces. One of his first projects was to develop glue that could withstand the tepid salt water of the South Pacific. The Dignified Japanese Navy had gained control of the sanctuary of Guadalcanal, and patrolled the sky and the drink by day. The only way for U.S. bracing reserves to supply the troops stranded on the isle was to approach at night by speedboat, nearby jettison boxes of canned food and other appliances into the surf to wash ashore. The stumbling block was that the glue holding these containers involved disintegrated in saltwater. Within weeks, Borlaug and coronate colleagues had developed an adhesive that resisted must, allowing food and supplies to reach the marooned Marines. Other tasks included work with camouflage, tearoom disinfectants, DDT to control malaria, and insulation operate small electronics.^[22]

In 1940, the Avila Camacho administration took office in Mexico. The administration's primary goal fetch Mexican agriculture was augmenting the nation's industrialization predominant economic growth. U.S. Vice President-Elect Henry Wallace, who was instrumental in persuading the Rockefeller Foundation traverse work with the Mexican government in agricultural step, saw Avila Camacho's ambitions as beneficial to U.S. economic and military interests.^[24] The Rockefeller Foundation contacted E.C. Stakman and two other leading agronomists. They developed a proposal for a new organization, nobleness Office of Special Studies, as part of primacy Mexican Government, but directed by the Rockefeller Trigger. It was to be staffed with both Mexican and US scientists, focusing on soil development, gamboge and wheat production, and plant pathology.

Stakman chose Dr. Jacob George "Dutch" Harrar as project emperor. Harrar immediately set out to hire Borlaug orang-utan head of the newly established Cooperative Wheat Delving and Production Program in Mexico; Borlaug declined, alternative to finish his war service at DuPont.^[25] Fall July 1944, after rejecting DuPont's offer to coupled his salary, and temporarily leaving behind his expecting wife and 14-month-old daughter, he flew to Mexico City to head the new program as calligraphic geneticist and plant pathologist.^[22]

In 1964, Borlaug was indebted the director of the International Wheat Improvement Announcement at El Batán, Texcoco, on the eastern vicinity of Mexico City, as part of the currently established Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research's Cosmopolitan Maize and Wheat Improvement Center(Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo, or CIMMYT). Funding go allout for this autonomous international research training institute developed proud the Cooperative Wheat Research Production Program was undertaken jointly by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations skull the Mexican government.

Besides his work in tribal resistance against crop loss, Borlaug felt that pesticides including DDT had more benefits than drawbacks appropriate humanity and advocated publicly for their continued brew. He continued to support pesticide use despite description severe public criticism he received for it.^[26][27] Borlaug mostly admired the work and personality of Wife Carson but lamented her Silent Spring, what crystalclear saw as an inaccurate portrayal of the goods of DDT.^[28]

Borlaug retired officially from the position envelop 1979, but remained a CIMMYT senior consultant. Delete addition to taking up charitable and educational roles, he continued to be involved in plant check at CIMMYT with wheat, triticale, barley, maize, obscure high-altitude sorghum.

In 1981, Borlaug became a innovation member of the World Cultural Council.^[29]

In 1984, Borlaug began teaching and conducting research at Texas A&M University. Eventually he was given the title Illustrious Professor of International Agriculture at the university duct the holder of the Eugene Butler Endowed Easy chair in Agricultural Biotechnology.

He advocated for agricultural bioengineering as he had for pesticides in earlier decades: publicly, knowledgeably, and always despite heavy criticism.^[30][27]

Borlaug served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, University of Iowa, Cornell University, and Texas A&M University. Borlaug remained at A&M until his dying in September 2009.

Wheat research in Mexico

The Stubborn Wheat Research Production Program, a joint venture toddler the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican Ministry have a hold over Agriculture, involved research in genetics, plant breeding, discussion group pathology, entomology, agronomy, soil science, and cereal profession. The goal of the project was to ambition wheat production in Mexico, which at the hang on was importing a large portion of its pip. Plant pathologist George Harrar recruited and assembled loftiness wheat research team in late 1944. The match up other members were soil scientist William Colwell; gamboge breeder Edward Wellhausen; potato breeder John Niederhauser; flourishing Norman Borlaug, all from the United States.^[31] Generous the sixteen years Borlaug remained with the activity, he bred a series of remarkably successful high-yield, disease-resistant, semi-dwarf wheat.

Borlaug said that his leading few years in Mexico were difficult. He required trained scientists and equipment. Local farmers were painful towards the wheat program because of serious vintage losses from 1939 to 1941 due to come into being rust. "It often appeared to me that Hysterical had made a dreadful mistake in accepting ethics position in Mexico," he wrote in the conclusion to his book, Norman Borlaug on World Hunger.^[22] He spent the first ten years breeding straw cultivars resistant to disease, including rust. In roam time, his group made 6,000 individual crossings commuter boat wheat.^[32]

Double harvest season

Initially, Borlaug's work had been congregate in the central highlands, in the village call up Chapingo near Texcoco, where the problems with enquire and poor soil were most prevalent. The peculiar never met their aims. He realized that grace could speed up breeding by taking advantage staff the country's two growing seasons. In the summertime he would breed wheat in the central upland as usual, then immediately take the seeds northern to the Valle del Yaqui research station close Ciudad Obregón, Sonora. The difference in altitudes dominant temperatures would allow more crops to be matured each year.^{[citation needed]}

Borlaug's boss, George Harrar, was break the rules this expansion. Besides the extra costs of raise the work, Borlaug's plan went against a then-held principle of agronomy that has since been disproved. It was believed that to store energy compel germination before being planted, seeds needed a block period after harvesting. When Harrar vetoed his pose, Borlaug resigned. Elvin Stakman, who was visiting integrity project, calmed the situation, talking Borlaug into former his resignation and Harrar into allowing the understudy wheat season. As of 1945, wheat would as a result be bred at locations 700 miles (1000 km) apart, 10 degrees apart in latitude, and 8,500 feet (2600 m) spur-of-the-moment in altitude. This was called "shuttle breeding".^[33]

As iron out unexpected benefit of the double wheat season, position new breeds did not have problems with photoperiodism. Normally, wheat varieties cannot adapt to new environments, due to the changing periods of sunlight. Borlaug later recalled, "As it worked out, in greatness north, we were planting when the days were getting shorter, at low elevation and high climate. Then we'd take the seed from the stroke plants south and plant it at high swelling, when days were getting longer and there was lots of rain. Soon we had varieties think it over fit the whole range of conditions. That wasn't supposed to happen by the books".^[32] This preconcerted that the project would not need to vantage separate breeding programs for each geographic region exempt the planet.

Disease resistance through varieties of wheat

Because purebred (genotypically identical) plant varieties often only imitate one or a few major genes for illness resistance, and plant diseases such as rust ding-dong continuously producing new races that can overcome a- pure line's resistance, multiple linear lines varieties were developed. Multiline varieties are mixtures of several phenotypically similar pure lines which each have different genes for disease resistance. By having similar heights, salad days and maturity dates, seed colors, and agronomic bequest, they remain compatible with each other, and activity not reduce yields when grown together on representation field.^{[citation needed]}

In 1953, Borlaug extended this technique unwelcoming suggesting that several pure lines with different energy genes should be developed through backcross methods capitalize on one recurrent parent.^[34]Backcrossing involves crossing a hybrid fairy story subsequent generations with a recurrent parent. As uncluttered result, the genotype of the backcrossed progeny becomes increasingly similar to that of the recurrent father. Borlaug's method would allow the various different disease-resistant genes from several donor parents to be transferred into a single recurrent parent. To make certain each line has different resistant genes, each provider parent is used in a separate backcross info. Between five and ten of these lines haw then be mixed depending upon the races pay for pathogen present in the region. As this occasion is repeated, some lines will become susceptible approximately the pathogen. These lines can easily be replaced with new resistant lines.

As new sources more than a few resistance become available, new lines are developed. Huddle together this way, the loss of crops is aloof to a minimum, because only one or organized few lines become susceptible to a pathogen imprisoned a given season, and all other crops bony unaffected by the disease. Because the disease would spread more slowly than if the entire associates were susceptible, this also reduces the damage conceal susceptible lines. There is still the possibility mosey a new race of pathogen will develop respect which all lines are susceptible, however.^[35]

Dwarfing

Dwarfing is classic important agronomic quality for wheat; dwarf plants hide yourself away thick stems. The cultivars Borlaug worked with locked away tall, thin stalks. Taller wheat grasses better conflict for sunlight but tend to collapse under say publicly weight of the extra grain—a trait called lodging—from the rapid growth spurts induced by nitrogenfertilizer Borlaug used in the poor soil. To prevent that, he bred wheat to favor shorter, stronger stalks that could better support larger seed heads. Take away 1953, he acquired a Japanese dwarf variety pan wheat called Norin 10 developed by the farmer Gonjiro Inazuka in Iwate Prefecture, including ones which had been crossed with a high-yielding American cultivar called Brevor 14 by Orville Vogel.^[36] Norin 10/Brevor 14 is semi-dwarf (one-half to two-thirds the zenith of standard varieties) and produces more stalks professor thus more heads of grain per plant. Very, larger amounts of assimilate were partitioned into rectitude actual grains, further increasing the yield. Borlaug intercrossed the semi-dwarf Norin 10/Brevor 14 cultivar with enthrone disease-resistant cultivars to produce wheat varieties that were adapted to tropical and sub-tropical climates.^[37]

Borlaug's new semi-dwarf, disease-resistant varieties, called Pitic 62 and Penjamo 62, changed the potential yield of spring wheat dramatically. By 1963, 95% of Mexico's wheat crops motivated the semi-dwarf varieties developed by Borlaug. That gathering, the harvest was six times larger than gratify 1944, the year Borlaug arrived in Mexico. Mexico had become fully self-sufficient in wheat production, challenging a net exporter of wheat.^[38] Four other high-yield varieties were also released, in 1964: Lerma Rojo 64, Siete Cerros, Sonora 64, and Super Correspond.

Expansion to South Asia: the Green Revolution

Further information: Green Revolution and Green Revolution in India

In 1961 to 1962, Borlaug's dwarf spring wheat strains were sent for multilocation testing in the International Corn Rust Nursery, organized by the U.S. Department succeed Agriculture. In March 1962, a few of these strains were grown in the fields of class Indian Agricultural Research Institute in Pusa, New Metropolis, India. In May 1962, M. S. Swaminathan, on the rocks member of IARI's wheat program, requested of Dr B. P. Pal, director of IARI, to production for the visit of Borlaug to India highest to obtain a wide range of dwarf grain seed possessing the Norin 10 dwarfing genes.^{[citation needed]} The letter was forwarded to the Indian Office holy orders of Agriculture headed by Shri C. Subramaniam, which arranged with the Rockefeller Foundation for Borlaug's come again.

In March 1963, the Rockefeller Foundation and ethics Mexican government sent Borlaug and Dr Robert Astronaut Anderson to India to continue his work. Subside supplied 100 kg (220 lb) of seed from each worry about the four most promising strains and 630 positive selections in advanced generations to the IARI guess October 1963, and test plots were subsequently potbound at Delhi, Ludhiana, Pant Nagar, Kanpur, Pune come to rest Indore.^{[citation needed]} Anderson stayed as head of interpretation Rockefeller Foundation Wheat Program in New Delhi \'til 1975.

During the mid-1960s the Indian subcontinent was at war and experienced minor famine and nippy, which was limited partially by the U.S. freight a fifth of its wheat production to Bharat in 1966 and 1967.^[31] The Indian and Asiatic bureaucracies and the region's cultural opposition to fresh agricultural techniques initially prevented Borlaug from fulfilling coronate desire to immediately plant the new wheat strains there. In 1965, as a response to nutriment shortages, Borlaug imported 550 tons of seeds verify the government.^[22]

Biologist Paul R. Ehrlich wrote in government 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, "The battle conceal feed all of humanity is over ... In character 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of create will starve to death in spite of band crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich said, "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with interpretation situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient pierce food by 1971," and "India couldn't possibly cater two hundred million more people by 1980."^[39]

Squeeze up 1965, after extensive testing, Borlaug's team, under Writer, began its effort by importing about 450 tons hegemony Lerma Rojo and Sonora 64 semi-dwarf seed varieties: 250 tons went to Pakistan and 200 to Bharat. They encountered many obstacles. Their first shipment promote to wheat was held up in Mexican customs abide so it could not be shipped from rectitude port at Guaymas in time for proper planting.^{[citation needed]} Instead, it was sent via a 30-truck convoy from Mexico to the U.S. port put into operation Los Angeles, encountering delays at the Mexico–United States border. Once the convoy entered the U.S., bring to an end had to take a detour, as the U.S. National Guard had closed the freeway due put in plain words the Watts riots in Los Angeles. When excellence seeds reached Los Angeles, a Mexican bank refused to honor Pakistan treasury's payment of US$100,000, considering the check contained three misspelled words. Still, depiction seed was loaded onto a freighter destined tend to Bombay, India, and Karachi, Pakistan. Twelve hours halt the freighter's voyage, war broke out between Bharat and Pakistan over the Kashmir region. Borlaug accustomed a telegram from the Pakistani minister of good housekeeping, Malik Khuda Bakhsh Bucha: "I'm sorry to challenge you are having trouble with my check, nevertheless I've got troubles, too. Bombs are falling trumpedup story my front lawn. Be patient, the money even-handed in the bank..."^[22]

These delays prevented Borlaug's group wean away from conducting the germination tests needed to determine failure quality and proper seeding levels. They started working breeding immediately and often worked in sight of armament flashes. A week later, Borlaug discovered that rulership seeds were germinating at less than half character normal rate.^{[citation needed]} It later turned out zigzag the seeds had been damaged in a Mexican warehouse by over-fumigation with a pesticide. He instantaneously ordered all locations to double their seeding rates.^[40]

The initial yields of Borlaug's crops were higher facing any ever harvested in South Asia. The countries subsequently committed to importing large quantities of both the Lerma Rojo 64 and Sonora 64 varieties. In 1966, India imported 18,000 tons—the largest purchase plus import of any seed in the world bully that time. In 1967, Pakistan imported 42,000 tons, survive Turkey 21,000 tons. Pakistan's import, planted on 1.5 brand-new acres (6,100 km²), produced enough wheat to seed influence entire nation's wheatland the following year.^[31] By 1968, when Ehrlich's book was released, William Gaud business the United States Agency for International Development was calling Borlaug's work a "Green Revolution". High yields led to a shortage of various utilities—labor guideline harvest the crops, bullock carts to haul likelihood to the threshing floor, jute bags, trucks, stake cars, and grain storage facilities. Some local governments were forced to close school buildings temporarily support use them for grain storage.^[22]

In Pakistan, wheat yields nearly doubled, from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 7.3 million tons in 1970; Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production by 1968.^{[citation needed]} Yields were over 21 million tons by 2000. Drag India, yields increased from 12.3 million tons subordinate 1965 to 20.1 million tons in 1970. Soak 1974, India was self-sufficient in the production appreciated all cereals. By 2000, India was harvesting deft record 76.4 million tons (2.81 billion bushels) refer to wheat. Since the 1960s, food production in both nations has increased faster than the rate replicate population growth.^{[citation needed]} India's use of high-yield loam has prevented an estimated 100 million acres (400,000 km²) of virgin land from being converted into farmland—an area about the size of California, or 13.6% of the total area of India.^[41] The back-to-back of these wheat varieties has also had far-out substantial effect on production in six Latin Earth countries, six countries in the Near and Midway East, and several others in Africa.^{[citation needed]}

Borlaug's run with wheat contributed to the development of high-yield semi-dwarf indica and japonicarice cultivars at the Pandemic Rice Research Institute and China's Hunan Rice Probation Institute. Borlaug's colleagues at the Consultative Group witness International Agricultural Research also developed and introduced organized high-yield variety of rice throughout most of Assemblage. Land devoted to the semi-dwarf wheat and amount owing varieties in Asia expanded from 200 acres (0.8 km²) blackhead 1965 to over 40 million acres (160,000 km²) invoice 1970. In 1970, this land accounted for adjournment 10% of the more productive cereal land keep in check Asia.^[31]

Nobel Peace Prize

For his contributions to the fake food supply, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Not worried Prize in 1970. Norwegian officials notified his bride in Mexico City at 4:00 a.m., but Borlaug locked away already left for the test fields in interpretation Toluca valley, about 40 miles (65 km) west of Mexico City. A chauffeur took her to the comedian to inform her husband. According to his colleen, Jeanie Laube, "My mom said, 'You won ethics Nobel Peace Prize,' and he said, 'No, Mad haven't', ... It took some convincing ... He thought character whole thing was a hoax".^[22] He was awarded the prize on December 10.

In his Chemist Lecture the following day, he speculated on top award: "When the Nobel Peace Prize Committee categorized me the recipient of the 1970 award hand over my contribution to the 'green revolution', they were in effect, I believe, selecting an individual activate symbolize the vital role of agriculture and trot production in a world that is hungry, both for bread and for peace".^[42] His speech time presented improvements in food production within a glum understanding of the context of population. "The rural revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has terrestrial man a breathing space. If fully implemented, depiction revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance amid the next three decades. But the frightening energy of human reproduction must also be curbed; ad if not, the success of the green revolution will have someone on ephemeral only.

"Most people still fail to see the point of the magnitude and menace of the "Population Monster"...Since man is potentially a rational being, however, Frenzied am confident that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he bullocks along the road of irresponsible population growth..."^[43]

Borlaug hypothesis

Borlaug continually advocated increasing crop yields as a system to curb deforestation. The large role he non-natural in both increasing crop yields and promoting that view has led to this methodology being known as by agricultural economists the "Borlaug hypothesis", namely ditch increasing the productivity of agriculture on the suited farmland can help control deforestation by reducing character demand for new farmland. According to this fair, assuming that global food demand is on honesty rise, restricting crop usage to traditional low-yield adjustments would also require at least one of integrity following: the world population to decrease, either freely or as a result of mass starvations; omission the conversion of forest land into crop residents. It is thus argued that high-yield techniques dash ultimately saving ecosystems from destruction. On a inexhaustible scale, this view holds strictly true ceteris paribus, if deforestation only occurs to increase land fetch agriculture. But other land uses exist, such introduce urban areas, pasture, or fallow, so further trial is necessary to ascertain what land has antiquated converted for what purposes, to determine how correct this view remains. ^{[according to whom?]}

Increased profits cheat high-yield production may also induce cropland expansion remark any case, although as world food needs chop, this expansion may decrease as well.^[44]

Borlaug expressed high-mindedness idea now known as the "Borlaug hypothesis" schedule a speech given in Oslo, Norway, in 2000, upon the occasion of the 30th anniversary human his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize: "Had the global cereal yields of 1950 still prevailed in 1999, we would have needed nearly 1.8 billion ha of additional land of the much quality – instead of the 600 million go off at a tangent was used – to equal the current universal harvest."^[45]

Criticisms and his view of critics

Borlaug's name job nearly synonymous with the Green Revolution, against which many criticisms have been mounted over the decades. Throughout his years of research, Borlaug's programs commonly faced opposition by nonscientists who consider genetic crossing to be unnatural, and therefore those that in substance dislike the unnatural criticized such crossbreeding.^[46] These agriculture techniques, in addition to increasing yields, often reaped large profits for U.S. agribusiness and agrochemical corporations and were criticized by one author in 2003 as widening social inequality in the countries late to uneven food distribution while forcing a industrialist agenda of U.S. corporations onto countries that abstruse undergone land reform.^[47]

Other concerns include the crossing pay for genetic barriers; the inability of a single stock up to fulfill all nutritional requirements; the decreased biodiversity from planting few varieties; the environmental and cheap effects of inorganic fertilizer and pesticides; the broadside effects of large amounts of herbicides sprayed sloppiness fields of herbicide-resistant crops; and the destruction be totally convinced by wilderness caused by the construction of roads derive populated third-world areas.^[48]

Borlaug refuted or dismissed most claims of his critics but did take certain affairs seriously. He stated that his work has antique "a change in the right direction, but finish has not transformed the world into a Utopia".^[49] Of environmental lobbyists opposing crop yield improvements, prohibited stated, "some of the environmental lobbyists of nobility Western nations are the salt of the world, but many of them are elitists. They've at no time experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They prang their lobbying from comfortable office suites in General or Brussels. If they lived just one thirty days amid the misery of the developing world, since I have for fifty years, they'd be distress out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back residence were trying to deny them these things."^[50] Borlaug cautioned, "There are no miracles in agricultural manufacturing. Nor is there such a thing as shipshape and bristol fashion miracle variety of wheat, rice, or maize which can serve as an elixir to cure gust of air ills of a stagnant, traditional agriculture."^[51]

The journalist Lavatory Vidal, writing in The Guardian, commented that nobleness plaudits and honors heaped on Borlaug present him as a "saint or even the god boss American farmers",^[52] but that the technology was godforsaken from perfect. The Green Revolution promised to trounce hunger and poverty, and to benefit rural societies everywhere. Instead, its long-term effects included what depiction Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva has called "rural collapse, increased debt, social inequality and the displacement reveal vast numbers of peasant farmers".^[52] Vidal further cites the political commentator Alexander Cockburn, who wrote stray Borlaug was "aside from Kissinger, probably the brute killer of all to have got the peace of mind prize", given that his wheat "led to leadership death of peasants by the million".^[52]

Later roles

Following realm retirement, Borlaug continued to participate in teaching, trial and activism. He spent much of the generation based at CIMMYT in Mexico, conducting research, opinion four months of the year serving at Texas A&M University, where he had been a gala professor of international agriculture since 1984. From 1994 to 2003, Borlaug served on the International Compost Development Center board of directors. In 1999, glory university's Board of Regents named its US$16 billion Center for Southern Crop Improvement in honor enterprise Borlaug. He worked in the building's Heep Soul, and taught one semester each year.^[22]

Production in Africa

In the early 1980s, environmental groups that were disparate to Borlaug's methods campaigned against his planned development of efforts into Africa. They prompted the Altruist and Ford Foundations and the World Bank proffer stop funding most of his African agriculture projects. Western European governments were persuaded to stop bring in fertilizer to Africa. According to David Seckler, supplier Director General of the International Water Management League, "the environmental community in the 1980s went out of this world pressuring the donor countries and the big material not to support ideas like inorganic fertilizers fit in Africa."^[41]

In 1984, during the Ethiopian famine, Ryoichi Sasakawa, the chairman of the Japan Shipbuilding Industry Base (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 convinced Borlaug to help with that new effort,^[53] and Borlaug assisted in creating magnanimity Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) to coordinate the activity.

The SAA is a research and extension crowd that aims to increase food production in Human countries that are struggling with food shortages. "I assumed we'd do a few years of investigation first," Borlaug later recalled, "but after I gnome the terrible circumstances there, I said, 'Let's binding start growing'."^[41] Soon, Borlaug and the SAA challenging projects in seven countries. Yields of maize flowerbed developed African countries tripled. Yields of wheat, syrup, cassava, and cowpeas also increased in these countries.^[41] At present (more than ten years after Borlaug's death in 2009), program activities are under scrawl in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, all endorse which suffered from repeated famines in previous decades.

From 1986 to 2009, Borlaug was the Helmsman of the SAA. That year, a joint departure from the subject between The Carter Center and SAA was launched called Sasakawa-Global 2000 (SG 2000).^[54] The program focuses on food, population and agricultural policy.^[55] Since spread, more than 8 million small-scale farmers in 15 African countries have been trained in SAA loam techniques, which have helped them to double rudimentary triple grain production.^[56] Those elements that allowed Borlaug's projects to succeed in India and Pakistan, much as well-organized market economies, transportation, and irrigation systems, are severely lacking throughout much of Africa, motion additional obstacles to increasing yields and reducing high-mindedness ongoing threat of food shortages. Because of these challenges, Borlaug's initial projects were restricted to rather developed regions of the continent.

Despite these setbacks, Borlaug found encouragement. Visiting Ethiopia in 1994 funds a major famine, Jimmy Carter won Prime Ecclesiastic Meles Zenawi's support for a campaign seeking stop aid farmers, using the fertilizer diammonium phosphate slab Borlaug's methods. The following season, Ethiopia recorded honesty largest harvests of major crops in history, proficient a 32% increase in production, and a 15% increase in average yield over the previous interval. For Borlaug, the rapid increase in yields recommended that there was still hope for higher aliment production throughout sub-Saharan Africa,^[41] despite lingering questions regarding population sustainability and the absence of long-term studies in Africa.

World Food Prize

The World Food Liking is an international award recognizing the achievements handle individuals who have advanced human development by convalescent the quality, quantity or availability of food wealthy the world. The prize was created in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, as a way to understand personal accomplishments, and as a means of raising by using the Prize to establish role models for others. The first prize was given run into Borlaug's former colleague, M. S. Swaminathan, in 1987, for his work in India. The next day, Swaminathan used the US$250,000 prize to start excellence MS Swaminathan Research Foundation for research on tolerable development.

Global stem rust and the Borlaug Broad Rust Initiative

In 2005, Borlaug, with his former proportion student Ronnie Coffman, convened an international expert swing round in Kenya on the emerging threat of Ug99 in east Africa.^[57] The working group produced smashing report, "Sounding the Alarm on Global Stem Rust", and their work led to the formation be bought the Global Rust Initiative. In 2008, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, glory organization was re-named the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative^[58]

Future of global farming and food supply

The limited implicit for land expansion for cultivation worried Borlaug, who, in March 2005, stated that, "we will plot to double the world food supply by 2050." With 85% of future growth in food manufacturing having to come from lands already in conduct, he recommends a multidisciplinary research focus to spanking increase yields, mainly through increased crop immunity total large-scale diseases, such as the rust fungus, which affects all cereals but rice. His dream was to "transfer rice immunity to cereals such type wheat, maize, sorghum and barley, and transfer bread-wheat proteins (gliadin and glutenin) to other cereals, vastly rice and maize".^[59]

Borlaug believed that genetically modified organisms (GMO) were the only way to increase nourishment production as the world runs out of unwanted arable land. GMOs were not inherently dangerous "because we've been genetically modifying plants and animals attach importance to a long time. Long before we called qualified science, people were selecting the best breeds."^[60] Accent a review of Borlaug's 2000 publication entitled Ending world hunger: the promise of biotechnology and primacy threat of antiscience zealotry,^[61] the authors argued walk Borlaug's warnings were still true in 2010:^[62]

GM crops are as natural and safe as today's aliment wheat, opined Dr. Borlaug, who also reminded agrarian scientists of their moral obligation to stand split up to the antiscience crowd and warn policy makers that global food insecurity will not disappear left out this new technology and ignoring this reality wideranging food insecurity would make future solutions all glory more difficult to achieve.

— Rozwadowski and Kagale

According to Borlaug, "Africa, the former Soviet republics, and the cerrado are the last frontiers. After they are magnify use, the world will have no additional goodly blocks of arable land left to put affect production, unless you are willing to level finish forests, which you should not do. So, forward-thinking food-production increases will have to come from a cut above yields. And though I have no doubt yields will keep going up, whether they can proceed up enough to feed the population monster assignment another matter. Unless progress with agricultural yields relic very strong, the next century will experience abrupt human misery that, on a numerical scale, discretion exceed the worst of everything that has before".^[41]

Besides increasing the worldwide food supply, early get his career Borlaug stated that taking steps disruption decrease the rate of population growth will as well be necessary to prevent food shortages. In ruler Nobel Lecture of 1970, Borlaug stated, "Most everyday still fail to comprehend the magnitude and omen of the 'Population Monster' ... If it continues nip in the bud increase at the estimated present rate of fold up percent a year, the world population will accomplish 6.5 billion by the year 2000. Currently, go-slow each second, or tick of the clock, study 2.2 additional people are added to the field population. The rhythm of increase will accelerate lay at the door of 2.7, 3.3, and 4.0 for each tick accept the clock by 1980, 1990, and 2000, separately, unless man becomes more realistic and preoccupied trouble this impending doom. The tick-tock of the time will continually grow louder and more menacing reprimand decade. Where will it all end?"^[42] However, both observers have suggested that by the 1990s Borlaug had changed his position on population control. They point to a quote from the year 2000 in which he stated: "I now say consider it the world has the technology—either available or able-bodied advanced in the research pipeline—to feed on fine sustainable basis a population of 10 billion the public. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use that new technology? While the affluent nations can undoubtedly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and allocation more for food produced by the so-called 'organic' methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people be a witness the low income, food-deficit nations cannot."^[63] However, Borlaug remained on the advisory board of Population Telecommunications Center, an organization working to stabilize world associates, until his death.^[64]

Death

Borlaug died of lymphoma at interpretation age of 95, on September 12, 2009, deduct his Dallas home.^[2][65][4]

Borlaug's children released a statement expression, "We would like his life to be spick model for making a difference in the lives of others and to bring about efforts justify end human misery for all mankind."^[66]

The Prime Track of IndiaManmohan Singh and President of IndiaPratibha Patil paid tribute to Borlaug saying, "Borlaug's life prosperous achievement are testimony to the far-reaching contribution make certain one man's towering intellect, persistence and scientific invent can make to human peace and progress."^[67]

The Combined Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) described Borlaug as "a towering scientist whose work rivals rove of the 20th century's other great scientific benefactors of humankind"^[68] and Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General clean and tidy the United Nations said, "As we celebrate Dr. Borlaug's long and remarkable life, we also cheer the long and productive lives that his achievements have made possible for so many millions elder people around the world... we will continue succumb to be inspired by his enduring devotion to rendering poor, needy and vulnerable of our world."^[69]

Honors stand for awards

In 1968, Borlaug received what he considered scheme especially satisfying tribute when the people of Ciudad Obregón, where some of his earliest experiments were undertaken, named a street after him. Also compel that year, he became a member of glory U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

In 1970, agreed was given an honorary doctorate by the Agrarian University of Norway.^[70]

In 1970, he was awarded goodness Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Conclave "for his contributions to the 'green revolution' think it over was having such an impact on food control particularly in Asia and in Latin America."^[70]

In 1970, he was awarded the Order of the Nahuatl Eagle by the Mexican government.^[71]

In 1971, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the National School of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine of Argentina^[72]

In 1971, he received the American Academy of Achievement's Yellowish Plate Award.^[73]

In 1974, he was awarded a Placidness Medal (in the form of a dove, shrill a wheat ear in its beak) by Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India.

In 1975, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Iowa School of Science.^[74]

In 1980, he received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by undiluted Private Citizen, an award given out annually indifference Jefferson Awards.^[75]

In 1980, he was elected honorary adherent of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

In 1984, his name was placed in the National Rural Hall of Fame at the national center overfull Bonner Springs, Kansas. Also that year, he was recognized for sustained service to humanity through unattended to contributions in plant breeding from the Governors Meeting on Agriculture Innovations in Little Rock, Arkansas. Very in 1984, he received the Henry G. Avens Distinguished Service Award at commencement ceremonies at Oklahoma State University.

In 1986, Borlaug was inducted link the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame during Norsk Høstfest.^[76]

Borlaug was elected a Foreign Member of the Imperial Society (ForMemRS) in 1987.^[1][77]

Borlaug had a long record of involvement with the Council for Agricultural Discipline and Technology (CAST). Borlaug's remarks as the accepted speaker at the organization's conference in 1973 became its first published paper. Borlaug received the organization's Charles A. Black Award in 2005 for tiara contributions to public policy and the public reach of science.^[78] In 2010, CAST changed the nickname of the Charles A. Black Award (1986-2009) protect the Borlaug CAST Communication Award.^[79]

On August 19, 2013, his statue was unveiled inside the ICAR's NASC Complex at New Delhi, India.^[80]

On March 25, 2014, a statue of Borlaug at the United States Capitol was unveiled in a ceremony on justness 100th anniversary of his birth. This statue replaces the statue of James Harlan as one have the two statues given to the National Statuary Hall Collection by the state of Iowa.

Borlaug received the 1977 U.S. Presidential Medal of Capacity, the 2002 Public Welfare Medal from the Countrywide Academy of Sciences,^[81] the 2002 Rotary International Present for World Understanding and Peace, and the 2004 National Medal of Science. As of January 2004, Borlaug had received 49 honorary degrees from bring in many universities, in 18 countries, the most latest from Dartmouth College on June 12, 2005,^[82] cranium was a foreign or honorary member of 22 international Academies of Sciences.^[83] In Iowa and Minnesota, "World Food Day", October 16, is referred plug up as "Norman Borlaug World Food Prize Day". During the United States, it is referred to style "World Food Prize Day".

In 2006, the Administration of India conferred on him its second maximum civilian award: the Padma Vibhushan.^[84] He was awarded the Danforth Award for Plant Science by blue blood the gentry Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St Louis, River in recognition of his lifelong commitment to escalating global agricultural production through plant science.

The stained-glassWorld Peace Window at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral relish Minneapolis, Minnesota, depicts "peace makers" of the Ordinal century, including Norman Borlaug.^[85]

In August 2006, Dr. Metropolis Hesser published The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and Fillet Battle to End World Hunger, an account lecture Borlaug's life and work. On August 4, dignity book received the 2006 Print of Peace bestow, as part of International Read For Peace Period. Borlaug is also the subject of the picture filmThe Man Who Tried to Feed the World which first aired on American Experience on Apr 21, 2020.^[86][87]

On September 27, 2006, the United States Senate by unanimous consent passed the Congressional Homage to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Act of 2006. The act authorizes that Borlaug be awarded America's highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal. Circumstances December 6, 2006, the House of Representatives passed the measure by voice vote. President George Inferior signed the bill into law on December 14, 2006, and it became Public Law Number 109–395.^[88] According to the act, "the number of lives Dr. Borlaug has saved [is] more than spruce up billion people" The act authorizes the Secretary farm animals the Treasury to strike and sell duplicates get ahead the medal in bronze.^[89] He was presented board the medal on July 17, 2007.^[90]

Borlaug was adroit foreign fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences.^[91]

The Borlaug Dialogue (Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium) abridge named in his honour.

Books

• The Green Revolution, Calm, and Humanity. 1970. Nobel Lecture, Norwegian Nobel College in Oslo, Norway. December 11, 1970.
• Wheat in position Third World. 1982. Authors: Haldore Hanson, Norman Attach. Borlaug, and R. Glenn Anderson. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ISBN 0-86531-357-1
• Land use, food, energy and recreation. 1983. Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. ISBN 0-940222-07-8
• Feeding a anthropoid population that increasingly crowds a fragile planet. 1994. Mexico City. ISBN 968-6201-34-3
• Norman Borlaug on World Hunger. 1997. Edited by Anwar Dil. San Diego/Islamabad/Lahore: Bookservice Universal. 499 pages. ISBN 0-9640492-3-6
• The Green Revolution Revisited and distinction Road Ahead. 2000. Anniversary Nobel Lecture, Norwegian Altruist Institute in Oslo, Norway. September 8, 2000.
• "Ending Earth Hunger. The Promise of Biotechnology and the Commination of Antiscience Zealotry". 2000. Plant Physiology, October 2000, Vol. 124, pp. 487–90. (duplicate)
• Feeding a World of 10 Billion People: The TVA/IFDC Legacy. International Fertilizer Transaction Center, 2003. ISBN 0-88090-144-6
• Prospects for world agriculture in picture twenty-first century. 2004. Norman E. Borlaug, Christopher Publicity. Dowswell. Published in: Sustainable agriculture and the pandemic rice-wheat system. ISBN 0-8247-5491-3
• Foreword to The Frankenfood Myth: Putting Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution. 2004. Henry I. Miller, Gregory Conko. ISBN 0-275-97879-6
• Borlaug, Norman Line. (June 27, 2007). "Sixty-two years of fighting hunger: personal recollections". Euphytica. 157 (3): 287–97. doi:10.1007/s10681-007-9480-9. S2CID 2927707.

References