NORMAN BORLAUG ushered in the green revolution and banished hunger from large swaths of humanity. Little known outside agriculture despite his many accolades, Borlaug changed the face of farming and inspired legions of agricultural scientists over a 95-year life.
Now he is gone, but his legacy lives on.
A self-described corn-fed, country-bred Iowa boy, Borlaug took his training in plant pathology and genetics to Mexico in the 1940s to work at the Rockefeller Foundation’s International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center. There he developed short stem, disease resistant wheat, which proved a spectacular success. It doubled yields when produced under management systems using fertilizer and pesticides.
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He worked with India and Pakistan in the 1960s to introduce the crop and its system to Asia, eliminating chronic food shortages. His work in wheat led to the development of high yield, semi-dwarf rice cultivars and improvements in corn.
The rapid spread of these crops through the world greatly expanded food production and reduced pressure from a rapidly expanding population.
It came to be called the green revolution and is credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives from starvation. For that, Borlaug received the 1970 Nobel peace prize.
He was active well into his 90s, lecturing, teaching, inspiring and promoting the application of technology, including genetic modification, to increase the food supply.
But the success also led to criticism.
The intensive farm system Borlaug promoted relies on commercial fertilizer, pesticides and fossil fuel.
Critics said pesticides endanger human health and the environment. Fertilizer residue washes into rivers, contributing to huge dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Winnipeg. Irrigation has depleted aquifers. Monocropping reduces diversity.
Agriculture has become dependent on fossil fuel for its fertilizer and fuel for tractors, combines, transport trucks and irrigation pumps.
Like any industry, modern agriculture has its drawbacks, but life would be worse without it.
As Borlaug argued, intensive farming allowed more food to be produced on the existing agricultural land base, reducing the need to plow grassland and forest.
Borlaug said his food system had to develop in step with population control or else it would strain the earth’s resources.
Population control has not been a success, but without the bounty of modern agriculture, the stresses of a world population now approaching seven billion would have sparked far more conflict and environmental damage than what we have experienced.
As Borlaug said, “you can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery.”
A new generation now advances agricultural science. Their task is not easy. They must endure the criticism of environmental extremists. Supplies of fossil fuel and water for irrigation, the catalyst of the green revolution, are less plentiful.
But they have new tools to help them develop new crop varieties resistant to drought, frost, disease and pests and capable of making better use of nutrients.
They might yet deliver Borlaug’s dream of a peaceful, well-fed world.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
