Dr. Norman E. Borlaug
March 25, 1914 – September 12, 2009

Norman Borlaug, food crop agronomist, humanitarian, Nobel laureate, and father of the ‘Green Revolution’, has died. Borlaug’s remarkable lifetime efforts fed millions of less fortunate around the world and continue to inspire everyone concerned with hunger and malnutrition.

Dr. Borlaug’s favorite saying was “Reach for the stars. You will never touch them, but you may get a little ‘star dust’ on your hands.” Indeed. His legacy includes billions of lives saved from the horror of starvation.

Norman Borlaug not only developed highly productive crops, but assured that small, third-world farmers had access to markets, agricultural knowledge, machinery and credit, fertilizers, and food storage. That in turn increased demand for machine production, education, roads, electricity, health care, and the whole range of infrastructure needed for modern civilization. Borlaug literally changed the world.

Borlaug’s accomplishments in multiplying food crop productivity earned him the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize in addition to a host of other awards and recognitions for his lifetime of devotion to feeding the earth.

Borlaug’s wife, Margaret Gibson Borlaug, preceded him in March 2007. At the loss, I extend my condolences to his daughter Jeanie Borlaug Laube and her husband Rex; son William Gibson Borlaug and his wife Barbie; and to his five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Peace be with you.

Borlaug’s success led to other results —‘farmland loss’ from unneeded and marginal farms, increased national park and monument areas, increased suburbanization and ‘sprawl’, even illegal immigration from countries whose populations no longer starve to death. That Norman Borlaug was successful, and we failed to prepare for or deal with these results, is not his fault.

One consequence of Borlaug’s work is almost all of our nation lives in urban areas insulated from agricultural reality. Less than two percent of Americans has a clue about our sustenance; what makes food, where it comes form, what is required, or how it is produced.

Many people remember but few can connect the actuality to the words, “Give us this day our daily bread”. For most of the world, Norman E. Borlaug’s work —his lifetime— was an answer to that prayer.

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MORE:
Norman Borlaug –Wikipedia
Billions Served –Reason Magazine
The Man Who Saved More Human Lives –Reason Magazine
Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity –The Atlantic
Norman Borlaug: The Legend –AgBio World

Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 5:15 pm.
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