Norman Borlaug was one of the most important people of the 20th century, and perhaps all time. Yet, he is relatively unknown in the United States. He came from fairly average beginnings and no one could have predicted the profound impact he would have. A Midwestern farm boy born to recent Norwegian immigrants he attended a one room school, earned good but not amazing grades, played some sports, and worked the farm. His first serious encounter with hunger and food security came in the Great Depression when he witnessed first hand people begging in the streets of Minneapolis. Encouraged by those around him who recognized his talent to go to college he flunked the entrance exam and went to a less prestige school for a while before getting into the University of Minnesota.
After working as a forester he went back to school to study plant pathology and disease and earn a PhD. Rust, a plant disease was one of Borlaug's principal concerns all his life. Later one of his professors, E. C. Stakman informed Borlaug about the Rockefeller Foundation's farming initiatives in Mexico. Despite speaking no Spanish and his recent marriage Borlaug spent much of the 1950s working under pretty dire conditions in Mexico. Roads were poor, the agricultural research stations were as well, he sometimes had to travel by chartered plane. Mexico, despite land reforms after it's recent civil war, was a food poor nation. Farmers lived at or near substance and yields were low. Here Borlaug worked tirelessly with farmers and scientists. Via a combination of cross breeding on a mass scale, shuttle crop breeding across the nation, and finding a dwarf wheat he could use to change the physical architecture of the plant the Rockefeller's goals were largely met. Mexico, in the 50s, progressed towards being a cereal sufficient nation. Nowadays they suffer from high rates of obesity.
If Mexico was bad, South Asia was seen as much worse. A few best selling books anticipated massive death would occur there no matter what. The USA, Canada, and Australia poured grain aid into India as its population ballooned. There, against dire odds and with the sense of hopelessness all around Borlaug and a number of American and Indian farmers, scientists, politicians, and bureaucrats were able to not only turn the situation around but turn Pakistan and India into nations self sufficient in wheat. Hundreds of millions were saved from hunger, starvation, malnourishment, and death. Introducing the semi-dwarf rust resistant wheat to south Asia was a Godsend. That wheat would spread across South West Asian and into much of Northern Africa. Borlaug has also worked in the areas of farming practice, public policy, fertilizer, pesticides, land use etc. For his work Borlaug earned a Nobel Peace Prize for saving one billion people.
Entering semi-retirement after his success in South Asia Borlaug was contacted by a Japanese industrialist who informed him the food situation in Africa was bleak. From the 1980s until his passing in 2009 Borlaug remained active in African farming, international agriculture associations, biotechnology as it becaem more viable, and established something called the World Food Prize. The WFP recognizes major contributions to improvements in food regarding quality, quantity and availability.
This is an authorized biography written by agricultural economist Leon Hesser, a personal acquaintance of Borlaug who spent some time working in Pakistan to train farmers and improve yields. Norman Borlaug lived an incredible life that has gone unappreciated by many in the developed world. In the developing world or former developing world his status is iconic. This book does a great job tracing his life from the farm to his later years trying to figure out what made him so driven and succesful.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Peter L.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 14, 2017
Read this book. Norman Borlaug is reckoned to have saved more lives than any person ever.
