The Man Who Fed the World

[Sapphire Blue]

From the day he was born in 1914, Norman Borlaug has been an enigma. How could a child of the Iowa prairie, who attended a one-teacher, one-room school; who flunked the university entrance exam; and whose highest ambition was to be a high school science teacher and athletic coach, ultimately achieve the distinction as one of the one hundred most influential persons of the twentieth century? And receive the Nobel Peace Prize for averting hunger and famine? And eventually be hailed as the man who saved hundreds of millions of lives from starvation—more than any other person in history?



What is it that made Norman Borlaug different? What drove him? What can we—especially our youth—learn from his life?
Those questions are answered in Leon Hesser’s authorized biography, The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger

In addition to an earned Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Borlaug has been awarded more than fifty honorary doctorates from institutions in eighteen countries. At age 91, Borlaug made three trips during 2005 to Africa and one each to India and Argentina is his continuing efforts to relieve hunger. During each fall semester, he is Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture at Texas AM University.

http://www.manwhofedtheworld.com/home.htm

July 20, 2007

Dr. Norman Borlaug, Who Saved a Billion Lives, Honored by Congress This Week

Nobelist has been called "The Man Who Fed the World"



New York, NY -- July 17, 2007. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) is delighted to acknowledge that Dr. Norman Borlaug, one of our founding directors (in 1978), today receives the Congressional Gold Medal in honor of his tireless work and multiple accomplishments in agricultural science. A Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian award bestowed by the United States Congress. Dr. Borlaug's award is to be presented by President George W. Bush and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

For nearly three decades, Dr. Borlaug has been actively involved in directing and advising ACSH's activities in multiple public health areas. His frequent attendance at ACSH board meetings and other activities has provided invaluable assistance as we strive to provide the best scientifically valid information to the media and to consumers.

Dr. Borlaug has been called the "Father of the Green Revolution" for his contributions to improving the characteristics of crop plants (especially corn and wheat), allowing Mexico, Pakistan, and India to expand their food production and avoid widespread famines. Indeed, it has been said that Dr. Borlaug has saved more lives than any other single person in history.

In a career spanning over five decades, Dr. Borlaug has received the Nobel Peace Prize (1970) for his agricultural achievements. He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. Dr. Borlaug is one of only five individuals who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as well as the Congressional Gold Medal (Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela are the others who received all three). He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Now 93, Dr. Borlaug still travels widely to developing countries to encourage the application of agricultural advances in the interest of both human wellbeing and environmental conservation. He teaches part of the year at Texas A & M University and is a special consultant to (and former director of) the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico. He also works for the Sasakawa Global 2000 program in Africa.

ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, one of many attending the award ceremony, comments that "Norman Borlaug is one of the great Americans of the past century. It is entirely appropriate that this honor be given to a man who, through his tireless work, has given so much both to Americans and to people around the world. I cannot imagine anyone more deserving. I am honored to know Dr. Borlaug, as are all those associated with the American Council on Science and Health."

http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.999/news_detail.asp

Pelosi: No Person Has Done More Than Dr. Norman Borlaug to Liberate the World From Hunger
07/17/2007

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi awarded Dr. Norman Borlaug the Congressional Gold Medal this morning in the Capitol Rotunda. Below are her remarks as prepared:

“It is a distinct privilege to join the President of the United States, House and Senate Leadership, and our esteemed Iowa Congressional delegation to honor Dr. Norman Borlaug today.

“In 1963, President John F. Kennedy said: ‘The war against hunger is truly mankind’s war of liberation.’

“That same year, Dr. Norman Borlaug was giving bread to a hungry world, saving millions of lives in countries such as Mexico, India, and Afghanistan.

“No person, before or since, has done more to answer the call to help liberate the world from hunger. As such, Dr. Borlaug is one of the greatest liberators the world has ever known.

“Seven years after President Kennedy’s call to action against hunger, Dr. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, the only person working in the agricultural field to receive this honor. Commonly know as the ‘Father of the Green Revolution,’ Dr. Borlaug’s scientific and humanitarian efforts have saved countless people from starvation and hunger while raising living standards throughout the world.

“In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Dr. Borlaug called on humankind to make reality the ideal of brotherhood between all nations. He concluded, ‘Let our wills say that it shall be so.’

“It was his will, his bold vision, and the solutions of science, by which Dr. Borlaug used the timeless resources of one farmer and one field to feed more people than ever before.

“And today we are called upon again as a nation and a world, to muster all our will, all our vision, and the answers that science has given us to solve the great challenges before us: hunger and poverty; the real and growing threat of global warming; and the fury of despair felt around the world.

“As we honor Dr. Borlaug, we also salute those whose love and support made his glorious achievements possible – his family. We recognize his wife Margaret, who worked alongside him for more than 50 years, until she passed away earlier this year. The honor and prestige of this award recognizes both of their work between them.

“We also acknowledge Dr. Borlaug’s two children, Jeanie and Billy, his five grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

“Let us honor the leadership of Dr. Borlaug by meeting the challenges before us.”


http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/speeches?id=0060

Norman E. Borlaug
Founder, The World Food Prize
1970 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate



View Dr. Borlaug's CV | View extended biography


In 1970 Norman E. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for a lifetime of work to feed a hungry world. Although a scientist with outstanding contributions, perhaps Dr. Borlaug's greatest achievement has been his unending struggle to integrate the various streams of agricultural research into viable technologies and to convince political leaders to bring these advances to fruition.

Born of Norwegian descent, Dr. Borlaug was raised in Cresco, a small farming community in northeast Iowa. He learned his work ethic on a small mixed crop and livestock family farm and obtained initial education in a one-room rural school house.

Dr. Borlaug's skills as an athlete (mainly in wrestling) opened the door for him to attend the University of Minnesota, where he studied to be a forester, wrestled, and worked various odd jobs. After graduating in 1937 with a BS in Forestry, he went to work for the United States Forest Service, initially in Idaho and later in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He returned to graduate school at the University of Minnesota, and took up the study of plant pathology, receiving his Ph.D. in 1942. Years later, the University of Minnesota would house its plant pathology and agronomy programs in Borlaug Hall.

After graduation, Dr. Borlaug worked as a Microbiologist for E.I. Dupont de Nemours, until being released from his wartime service.

In 1944, Dr. Borlaug participated in the Rockefeller Foundation's pioneering technical assistance program in Mexico, where he was a research scientist in charge of wheat improvement. For the next sixteen years, he worked to solve a series of wheat production problems that were limiting wheat cultivation in Mexico and to help train a whole generation of young Mexican scientists.

The work in Mexico not only had a profound impact on Dr. Borlaug's life and philosophy of agriculture research and development, but also on agricultural production, first in Mexico and later in many parts of the world.

It was on the research stations and farmers' fields of 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 new wheat varieties and improved crop management practices transformed agricultural production in Mexico during the 1940's and 1950's and later in Asia and Latin America, sparking what today is known as the "Green Revolution." Because of his achievements to prevent hunger, famine and misery around the world, it is said that Dr. Borlaug has "saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived."


http://www.worldfoodprize.org/about/Borlaug.htm

[texanshatingbush]

1. Why does Chimpy McFlightsuit need to be present to award a CONGRESSIONAL gold medal??

"A Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian award bestowed by the United States Congress. Dr. Borlaug's award is to be presented by President George W. Bush and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi." Is this just one more indication that Chimpy doesn't recognize the Congress' authority to do ANYTHING???

Didn't Chimpy get HIS moment of glory when he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Tommy Franks, George Tenet, and Jerry Bremer?

Personal bitterness aside, I say: thank God for people like Dr. Borlaug. He represents the best of America, a time when we really cared about our fellow man AND lived our lives in a way to prove that care and love.

[applegrove]

2. I bet you the man never got hugely rich with dollars. But he is likely one

of the richest Americans that can be found. His family must be so proud.

[Sapphire Blue]

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[HamdenRice]

7. There is something so different about this from big Ag bio-engineering

Some of the scientists who have had the greatest impact on agriculture have worked in ways that are completely different from big Ag's approach. Gregor Mendel, George Washington Carver and Norman E. Borlaug basically had the patience to observe plants over many seasons, to breed them to save good seeds -- and that's completely different from the current approach of "manufacturing" new varieties by manipulating and inserting genes.

A big part of the green revolution also was saving indigenous, or "land race," seeds from cultures all over the world, and storing them for all humanity. That led to the International Rice Research Institute, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Institute and others and the slow process of cross breeding that created the hybrids we now rely on.