Who was Dr. Norman Borlaug? You can learn much more about his amazing life here and here, but I'll try and make this short.
Surely some of you have heard of the Green Revolution, right? No, it doesn't refer to the advent of crazy drug use in the 70s. It is the agricultural engineering that revolutionized crops, beginning in the 1940s (though the term was not coined until the 60s). It was kicked off by Dr. Borlaug as a result of his research on wheat. Case in point, Mexico had an issue regarding its wheat. Borlaug and a few other researchers were brought to Mexico and were told to research a solution regarding this. There were soil issues as well as crop disease (ie: stem rust). They lacked hardware and had to make do with what they had. It was practically a dead-end of sorts given what they were expected to do, given what was on-hand. I'm cutting the story substantially short here, but he went against what was seen as fact/common knowledge within agriculture at the time and disproved it repeatedly.
In the early 1940s, before Borlaug's work kicked in, Mexico imported the vast majority of its wheat. Within ten or so years, it was self-sufficient. Ten more years later, it was exporting gigantic amounts of the crop (millions of tons if I recall properly).
Following this jaunt in Mexico, he went to India where he quadrupled wheat output. After that? China for rice. He also had work in Africa where, unfortunately, he gets blocked off due to folks who do not approve of his work. In spite of this, he managed to get in to African farming from time to time. Case in point, the early 80s famines in Ethiopia were ended as a result of his intervention.
So he mixed around some seeds and made some food, right? Well, look at it this way: he is probably one of the most decorated individuals in quite some time. Every country he worked within typically gave him their most prestigious awards for private citizens. Adding on to this, he won the Nobel Prize. Why? Well, the results of his work have some numbers tossed around. Some say that he is directly responsible for saving 250 million lives from hunger. I've seen mention of 1 billion elsewhere. This is strictly in terms of immediate effects.
Perhaps counterintuitively, the increase in food supplies also helps to reduce overpopulation strain. Third world countries have such high birth rates because a large amount of children DIE. Families rely on their offspring to help on the farms, make goods, and other things the family does to scrape up some money. Deadly and debilitating diseases are rampant, causing the loss not only of family members but of workers in the family business that keep the family alive. Wives are going to pop out as many kids as possible because there's a good chance quite a few won't survive. Having a solid, reliable food base lessens the strain for money, allows people to focus on other things - like medicine and education - since they aren't worrying about making enough to survive, and greatly reduces the need to have a flock of children.
He was a humble man known to give credit to others and for his quote ""We're going to teach you to be rebels. Not with guns and daggers, but with science and technology." Every so often a person comes along who uses his or her brilliance and drive to drastically improve the lives of others. Dr. Borlaug was one of those people.
Surely some of you have heard of the Green Revolution, right? No, it doesn't refer to the advent of crazy drug use in the 70s. It is the agricultural engineering that revolutionized crops, beginning in the 1940s (though the term was not coined until the 60s). It was kicked off by Dr. Borlaug as a result of his research on wheat. Case in point, Mexico had an issue regarding its wheat. Borlaug and a few other researchers were brought to Mexico and were told to research a solution regarding this. There were soil issues as well as crop disease (ie: stem rust). They lacked hardware and had to make do with what they had. It was practically a dead-end of sorts given what they were expected to do, given what was on-hand. I'm cutting the story substantially short here, but he went against what was seen as fact/common knowledge within agriculture at the time and disproved it repeatedly.
In the early 1940s, before Borlaug's work kicked in, Mexico imported the vast majority of its wheat. Within ten or so years, it was self-sufficient. Ten more years later, it was exporting gigantic amounts of the crop (millions of tons if I recall properly).
Following this jaunt in Mexico, he went to India where he quadrupled wheat output. After that? China for rice. He also had work in Africa where, unfortunately, he gets blocked off due to folks who do not approve of his work. In spite of this, he managed to get in to African farming from time to time. Case in point, the early 80s famines in Ethiopia were ended as a result of his intervention.
So he mixed around some seeds and made some food, right? Well, look at it this way: he is probably one of the most decorated individuals in quite some time. Every country he worked within typically gave him their most prestigious awards for private citizens. Adding on to this, he won the Nobel Prize. Why? Well, the results of his work have some numbers tossed around. Some say that he is directly responsible for saving 250 million lives from hunger. I've seen mention of 1 billion elsewhere. This is strictly in terms of immediate effects.
Perhaps counterintuitively, the increase in food supplies also helps to reduce overpopulation strain. Third world countries have such high birth rates because a large amount of children DIE. Families rely on their offspring to help on the farms, make goods, and other things the family does to scrape up some money. Deadly and debilitating diseases are rampant, causing the loss not only of family members but of workers in the family business that keep the family alive. Wives are going to pop out as many kids as possible because there's a good chance quite a few won't survive. Having a solid, reliable food base lessens the strain for money, allows people to focus on other things - like medicine and education - since they aren't worrying about making enough to survive, and greatly reduces the need to have a flock of children.
He was a humble man known to give credit to others and for his quote ""We're going to teach you to be rebels. Not with guns and daggers, but with science and technology." Every so often a person comes along who uses his or her brilliance and drive to drastically improve the lives of others. Dr. Borlaug was one of those people.
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