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“…Norman Ernest Borlaug (March 25, 1914 – September 12, 2009)[1] was an American agronomist, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate, and has been called the father of the Green Revolution.[2] Borlaug was one of only five people to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.[3] He was also a recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honor. Borlaug’s discoveries have been estimated to have saved over 245 million lives worldwide.[4]
Borlaug received his Ph.D. degree 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.
During the mid-20th century, Borlaug led the introduction of these high-yielding varieties combined with modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan, and India. As a result, Mexico became a net exporter of wheat by 1963. Between 1965 and 1970, wheat yields nearly doubled in Pakistan and India, greatly improving the food security in those nations. These collective increases in yield have been labeled the Green Revolution, and Borlaug is often credited with saving over a billion people from starvation.[5] He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 in recognition of his contributions to world peace through increasing food supply.
Later in his life, he helped apply these methods of increasing food production to Asia and Africa. Borlaug continually advocated the use of his methods and biotechnology to decrease world famine. His work faced environmental and socioeconomic criticisms, including charges that his methods have created dependence on monoculture crops, unsustainable farming practices, heavy indebtedness among subsistence farmers, and high levels of cancer among those who work with agriculture chemicals. He emphatically rejected many of these as unfounded or untrue.[citation needed] In 1986, he established the World Food Prize to recognize individuals who have improved the quality, quantity or availability of food around the globe. …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Saved More Human Lives Than Any Other Has Died
“…Norman Borlaug, the man who saved more human lives than anyone else in history, has died at age 95. Borlaug was the Father of the Green Revolution, the dramatic improvement in agricultural productivity that swept the globe in the 1960s. For spearheading this achievement, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. One of the great privileges of my life was meeting and talking with Borlaug many times over the past few years. In remembrance, I cite the introduction to Reason’s 2000 interview with Borlaug below: …”
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/136043.html
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Nobel Prize winner, science pioneer, famine fighter Norman Borlaug, R.I.P. By Michelle Malkin
“…Eco-charlatans like Van Jones claim to represent the poor and pose as saviors of the planet.
Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize-winning agricultural scientist, was a real global famine fighter and science pioneer who literally saved billions around the world. He died today at the age of 95:
Nobel Prize-winning agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug has died in Texas at age 95.
Known as the father of the “green revolution,” Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in combating world hunger.
Texas A&M University spokeswoman Kathleen Phillips said Borlaug died just before 11 p.m. Saturday at his home in Dallas.
The Nobel committee honored Borlaug in 1970 for contributions to high-yield crops and other agricultural innovations in the developing world. Many experts credit his green revolution with averting global famine during the second half of the 20th century.
CEI’s Fran Smith wrote in 2007:
Has there been anyone else in history credited with saving a billion people? Yesterday Norman Borlaug received the Congressional Gold Medal, America’s highest civilian award. This humble and unpretentious microbiologist and plant breeder is credited with saving over a billion lives through the “Green Revolution.” Dr. Borlaug has spent his professional life introducing crop breeding methods to developing countries that dramatically increased crop yields and saved over a billion people from starvation.
Gregg Easterbrook excoriated American ignorance about this scientific giant when he received the Congressional Gold Medal:
Do you know Borlaug’s achievement? Would you recognize him if he sat on your lap? Norman Borlaug WON THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, yet is anonymous in the land of his birth.
Born 1914 in Cresco, Iowa, Borlaug has saved more lives than anyone else who has ever lived. A plant breeder, in the 1940s he moved to Mexico to study how to adopt high-yield crops to feed impoverished nations. Through the 1940s and 1950s, Borlaug developed high-yield wheat strains, then patiently taught the new science of Green Revolution agriculture to poor farmers of Mexico and nations to its south. When famine struck India and Pakistan in the mid-1960s, Borlaug and a team of Mexican assistants raced to the Subcontinent and, often working within sight of artillery flashes from the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, sowed the first high-yield cereal crop in that region; in a decade, India’s food production increased sevenfold, saving the Subcontinent from predicted Malthusian catastrophes. Borlaug moved on to working in South America. Every nation his green thumb touched has known dramatic food production increases plus falling fertility rates (as the transition from subsistence to high-tech farm production makes knowledge more important than brawn), higher girls’ education rates (as girls and young women become seen as carriers of knowledge rather than water) and rising living standards for average people. Last fall, Borlaug crowned his magnificent career by persuading the Ford, Rockefeller and Bill & Melinda Gates foundations to begin a major push for high-yield farming in Africa, the one place the Green Revolution has not reached.
Yet Borlaug is unknown in the United States, and if my unscientific survey of tonight’s major newscasts is reliable, television tonight ignored his receipt of the Congressional Gold Medal, America’s highest civilian award. I clicked around to ABC, CBS and NBC and heard no mention of Borlaug; no piece about him is posted on these networks’ evening news websites; CBS Evening News did have time for video of a bicycle hitting a dog. (I am not making that up.)
Please teach your children about Borlaug. This is what a true environmental hero looks like.
*** …”
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/13/nobel-prize-winner-science-pioneer-famine-fighter-norman-borlaug-r-i-p/
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