Norman Borlaug: Controversial father of the
Green Revolution
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When it comes to a person's goals, dreams,
and life's work, it seems like there would
be few pursuits more worthy than alleviating
world hunger.
Surely, bringing food to the starving masses,
bringing crops to barren areas of the world,
and averting famine, death, and disease is
a lofty ambition… isn't it?
Norman Borlaug truly believed so, and he made
it his life's work to create crops that would
relieve food shortages across the globe.
Even though his name is hardly a household
one, there's no denying that he shaped the
world's food supply in such a way it's still
being felt today… for better or worse.
Borlaug was born in 1914.
He lived through World War One, started college
during the Great Depression, saw the American
Midwest turn into the Dust Bowl, and it was
then that he decided he was going to spend
the rest of his life introducing high-yield
crops to areas who could benefit from them.
And that has turned out to be surprisingly
controversial.
Murmurs of discontent and cynicism started
in the 1980s, and over the following decades,
Borlaug's methods would come under an ever-increasing
amount of scrutiny.
He remained resolute, though, and the world…
well, whether it benefited from his work or
was infinitely hurt by it is still up for
debate.
Growing up on the farm
While some people find their calling late
in life, others have their life's work shaped
by their earliest memories.
That was certainly the case with Norman Borlaug;
born on March 25, 1914, he grew up on a small
farm in Iowa.
Those childhood years were shaped by hard
work and subsistence farming — that is,
farming that yields just enough for the survival
of the family, with little or nothing left
over for sale or profit.
It was an incredibly hard life, made even
harder by the fact this was an era before
there was help from mechanization and tractors.
For much of his youth, in fact, there wasn't
even any electricity.
When he enrolled in school in 1919, it really
was a mile and a half each way… even though
that sounds like a bit of a cliche.
He thrived in school and on the farm, where
he spent his hours doing the chores he'd been
tasked with since he could walk: collecting
eggs, pulling weeds, and feeding the chickens.
The chores, of course, got more difficult
as he got older, and working on a farm like
this, there was no one job he was in charge
of.
He did everything, from caring for the animals
to separating cream from the milk.
And, when times were particularly harsh, and
during outbreaks of influenza that would kill
several family friends, he would carry hot
soup to neighbors who had been quarantined
in their homes.
Living through that sort of hardship undoubtedly
gives a young boy a complete appreciation
for struggles.
In Borlaug's case, he would become determined
to alleviate them for others.
With little time for extracurricular activities,
it may have seemed like a given that young
Borlaug would grow up to take over the family
farm and follow in his father's footsteps,
but one person changed those plans.
His 7th grade teacher — who was also his
cousin — recommended he be sent to high
school, and he was.
Cresco High School was 12 miles from the family
farm and, of course, there were no buses.
Borlaug eventually moved to town, started
participating in school sports like wrestling
and football, and found himself given one
of the greatest gifts a child can receive
— a teacher who inspired him.
His name was Harry Schroder, and he was the
Vocational Agriculture teacher.
Borlaug had been raised with a belief particular
to the area and the culture he had been immersed
in.
As a farmer with a close connection to the
land, he had held sacred the richness and
fertility of the Iowa soils, and their ability
to grow the crops that would nurture and sustain
the people who lived there.
But when his teacher had the students set
up a year long experiment where they grew
crops in both unfertilized soil and soil augmented
with things like potassium, nitrogen, and
phosphorus, the results provided a valuable
lesson.
The augmented soil yielded almost twice the
amount of food, and that ended up being a
life-changing realization.
Sometimes, it takes a while for life-changing
events to really make their mark, though,
and Borlaug initially flunked the entrance
exam into the University of Minnesota.
Clearly not one to shy away from hard work,
he enrolled in a junior college and ultimately
graduated from U of M's College of Agriculture
with a degree in Forestry.
When the world turned to dust…
Borlaug had initially planned on using his
degree in forestry, but when the possibility
of a job with the Forest Service disappeared,
he had to make other plans.
He ended up returning to school for a degree
in plant pathology, and this was happening
at a dark time in America's history.
And we mean that quite literally.
While Borlaug was busy researching a particular
variety of fungal disease, he and his co-researchers
stumbled across the discovery that outbreaks
of the disease were impacted by international
harvest cycles; it was as important a moment
as his teacher's lesson about fertilizers
had once been.
It made it clear that everything was connected,
and at the time, something terrifying was
forming in the American Midwest: the Dust
Bowl.
It was an instance of the perfect storm.
Post-war demand had sent the need for staple
crops skyrocketing, and families hopeful for
a better life moved westward to take advantage
of incentives offered by the US government.
But that boom was followed by the Great Depression,
crop prices crumbled, and those once-optimistic
families were suddenly finding themselves
unable to make ends meet.
They needed more crops to sell, plowed more
and more land, and when drought came along
with the 1930s, that land no longer had native
grasses to protect it from erosion.
Valuable topsoil was swept away in massive
dust storms called "Black Blizzards", darkening
the skies for days at a time.
Dust and dirt from the great plains of the
Midwest was dumped along the eastern seaboard
and even covered ships in the Atlantic; it
got everywhere, it crept into homes and into
the lungs of humans and animals alike, sickening
those it didn't kill.
Borlaug watched all this, and was horrified
by what he saw going on around him.
But he also noticed something: areas being
used for experimentation with high-yield crops
seemed to be the least impacted by Dust Bowl
conditions, and he decided this was the path
his life was going to take.
High-yield crops seemed to be the answer to
two major problems: these crops would be able
to feed more people, but they would also help
save countless acres of untouched wilderness.
If agricultural land was made more productive,
Borlaug's thinking went, there would be no
more need to make more of it.
Prairies and wetlands would remain untouched,
entire ecosystems would be preserved, and
native species could continue to thrive.
It was an admirable plan, but in hindsight,
there are many who would point out that the
road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Perfecting some of the oldest crops in the
world
Wheat has been a staple crop for somewhere
around 10,000 years, and it's changed quite
a bit with the guidance of generations of
farmers.
By 1944, Borlaug had already spent a few years
researching bactericides and fungicides, but
with the arrival of World War Two, priorities
changed.
He partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation
and was transferred to the International Center
for Maize and Wheat Improvement, or CIMMYT,
to use the Spanish acronym.
This is where things start to get surprisingly
controversial.
Within four years, Borlaug succeeded in improving
four strains of wheat.
His versions were highly resistant to stem
rust, the fungal disease he had been studying
earlier in his career, and they also put out
higher yields and matured about two weeks
faster than previous incarnations the various
strains.
He also ended up with strains of wheat that
possessed "daylight insensitivity,"which essentially
means they can be grown almost anywhere in
the world, as suddenly it no longer mattered
how many hours of daylight they were exposed
to.
Borlaug and his team did it by performing
thousands upon thousands of crossings, carefully
selecting wheat with the traits they were
looking for and crossing them to ensure not
just healthy plants, but fertile ones as well.
It sounds like they were creating an early
version of GMO crops, and they sort of were.
They weren't actually mucking about with DNA,
though, relying instead on selecting plants
based purely on an individual stalk's, say,
strength or yield.
It's worth noting, though, that journals like
Nature do consider him one of the early pioneers
of the movement, and his family has spoken
out about the damage done by the anti-GMO
sentiment.
The technology Borlaug and his team worked
with was nothing along the lines of what we
have today, but by 1954, they had their "miracle
seeds."
They were the opposite of what most people
might expect, envisioning wide, sprawling
fields of tall, slender stalks of wheat.
Borlaug's miracle wheat was based around dwarf
wheat, which is brilliant for a few reasons.
The shorter the wheat stalk is, the less energy
and fewer nutrients go into growing an inedible
stalk that just goes to waste.
The short stalks are stouter, which means
they won't bend under the weight of their
kernels, and there's less competition for
sunlight.
As with most things that sound too good to
be true, there was a catch.
These high-yield dwarf wheat seeds required
more water than standard wheat, as well as
needing a ton of fertilizer to reach their
full potential.
Borlaug campaigned heavily for the use of
organic fertilizers with his crops, but getting
that much organic fertilizer would mean raising
more livestock, which would consume the crops
that were being grown… it was a cycle with
no easy, straightforward answer… aside from
the widespread use of inorganic fertilizers.
Regardless of long-term complications, Borlaug's
new strain of wheat was a massive success
almost immediately.
By 1956, Mexico doubled their wheat production
and no longer needed to rely on imports.
That only continued to increase — by 1963,
their production was six times what it had
been in 1944.
There was no doubt the varieties of wheat
Borlaug had carefully cultivated had the potential
to change the world, and he became a champion
for the idea of spreading these high-yield
crops into poverty- and famine-stricken areas
that were in dire need of a new and reliable
food source.
In 1963, Borlaug took his program to Pakistan
and India, where he promptly failed to convince
them to adopt his wheat as a staple crop.
But conditions there were growing more dire
by the day.
Food shortages were widespread, and for many,
famine and starvation were all too real.
By the time Borlaug was able to arrange for
a 35-truck convoy to take seeds to LA then
load them on a ship bound for India, war had
broken out — one more obstacle to overcome.
When they received the first shipment and
planted their first fields, they did so while
working a stone's throw from artillery fire…
and that had to be terrifying.
Delays meant the crop didn't get planted in
time but even so, crop yields rose, mass starvation
was averted, and by the mid-1970s, both India
and Pakistan were self-sufficient when it
came to their wheat production.
Borlaug was credited with saving hundreds
of millions of lives, and averting a major
famine.
At the same time, his high-yield crops spread
even farther, introduced to countries like
Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, and Egypt.
Even as Borlaug's wheat strains started to
grow and bellies were being filled, he was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
It was 1970, and Borlaug's world had come
full circle.
While his roots were firmly planted in America's
Heartland, his parents had hailed from Norway
— a country they had left due to extreme
food shortages.
Borlaug had set out to solve that problem,
and it seemed as though he had.
A farmer, a former president, and a war criminal
walk into a bar...
By the 1980s, Borlaug had expanded his program
to bring not just high-yield crops to Africa,
but crop science education, as well.
He shouldered a huge burden: removing malnutrition
and poverty from towns and villages across
Africa.
Here, he was most successful with development
of a high-nutrition strain of corn, called
Quality Protein Maize.
But much to Borlaug's outrage, he suddenly
found himself fighting an uphill battle in
the 1980s.
Lobbyists were suddenly attacking his largest
supporters, including the Ford Foundation
and the World Bank.
Because his high-yield crops relied heavily
on inorganic fertilizers, environmental lobbyists
started putting on the pressure.
The green parties of various European countries
started leaning on their governments, too,
appealing for an end to the export of fertilizer
into Africa.
For the most part, governments listened.
For Borlaug, it was clearly a case of the
elite deciding what was best for the poor
and the starving.
He didn't mince words, saying of the lobbyists,
"They've never experienced the physical sensation
of hunger.
They do their lobbying from comfortable office
suites in Washington or Brussels.
If they lived just one month amid the misery
of the developing world, as I have for fifty
years, they'd be crying out for tractors and
fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged
that fashionable elitists back home were trying
to deny them these things."
Fortunately for Borlaug, it wasn't a battle
he needed to fight alone.
By 1984, he had fallen in with two unlikely
allies.
The first was former American President Jimmy
Carter.
Carter — who was also from an agricultural
background — had also taken up the cause
of improving the state of the agricultural
industry in Africa.
The second was a little less expected: it
was Ryoichi Sasakawa.
Sasakawa was… well, his 1995 obituary referred
to him as the "last of Japan's A-class war
criminals," "a monster of egotism, greed,
ruthless ambition, political deviousness,
and with a love of the limelight," and a "loveable
rascal" … and that's all in the first paragraph.
A self-educated and larger-than-life figure
who was so thrilled to be instructed to report
to prison as a World War Two, A-class war
criminal that he showed up with a brass band
to announce his arrival, he was definitely…
colorful?
His tale is one of illicit love affairs and
illegitimate children, of treasure-hunting
and a gambling empire, and — in 1982 — a
collapse while attending a geisha party.
Then 84 years old, it was another four years
before he had an apparent change in heart.
Where he had once founded Japan's Ultra-Nationalist
People's Party (and fashioned himself in the
style of his heroes, Hitler and Mussolini),
he now founded the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
Through his foundation, he funneled an insane
amount of money into education and various
other benevolent charities… sure, it was
in an attempt to snag a Nobel Prize, but…
it's the thought that counts?
It would be impossible to imagine a figure
more different than Borlaug, the quintessential
Midwestern farmer, humanitarian, and mastermind
of all things agricultural.
But somehow — proving that sometimes, truth
really is stranger than fiction — they formed
a partnership.
Sasakawa had been reportedly shocked that
Borlaug — who held the Nobel Prize he so
desired for himself — had been denied funding
for his philanthropic work in Africa.
So Sasakawa gave him a call.
Borlaug hesitated at first, and not because
of the rather shady nature of his newfound
benefactor.
He was 71 by this time, and Sasakawa convinced
him to kick off his projects by simply saying,
"I'm fifteen years older than you, so I guess
we should have started yesterday."
Sasakawa and Borlaug — with Jimmy Carter
along to round out this truly strange trio
— headed to Africa.
They selected the locations for their projects,
which included Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, and
Tanzania, and it wasn't long before the production
of staple crops like wheat, corn, and sorghum
skyrocketed.
Savior of millions, or destroyer of worlds?
Not everyone who studied Borlaug's work was
thrilled with the outcome.
While lobbyists had stymied his work in Africa,
they weren't the only ones warning of the
dangers of high-yield crops.
Some — like the ecologist Vandana Shiva,
condemned the crops as contributing to a reduction
in soil fertility and genetic diversity, also
claiming the crops' reliance on fertilizers
had kicked off a long-term cycle of rural
poverty and debt.
The farming practices he promoted were undeniably
high-maintenance, and critics began to question
whether or not it was sustainable.
Critics also condemned Borlaug for another
reason, and this… this is going to get dark.
While he shouldered the heavy burden of eliminating
world hunger, there were those that suggested
that people were hungry for a reason, and
that widespread famine was the Earth's own
sort of population control.
The more food there is, the thought process
goes, the more mouths there will be to feed,
a state some touted as problematic.
We did say it was going to get dark.
Over the course of his career, Borlaug had
an argument for all of the problems naysayers
had with his work, and he was a life-long
proponent of population control.
Interestingly, his high-yield crops and elimination
of hunger went hand-in-hand with that.
When he was growing up — on a subsistence
farm, during the hardships of wartime and
economic depression — families tended to
have handfuls of children.
They were needed to work the farm, after all,
just as he and his siblings did.
And, it was sort of assumed that not all of
a family's children were going to survive.
He knew that firsthand, too, burying his baby
sister when he was still a boy.
It was an Indian diplomat named Karan Singh
who made the comment, "Development is the
best contraceptive," and the statistics support
that idea.
When food is plentiful — and when high-yield
crops are put in place — societies tend
to have lower death rates and, in turn, lower
birth rates.
It both seems counter-intuitive and makes
sense at the same time, and it was precisely
these types of arguments that Borlaug often
found himself embroiled in.
Still, in spite of the naysayers and the critics,
Borlaug continued his work.
In 2003, he visited Uganda and noticed there
was an outbreak of a new type of wheat stem
rust disease — the very disease he had started
out studying decades before.
Thanks to his vigilance, the USDA and the
University of Minnesota confirmed the outbreak
and started down the path of finding a way
to stop it — with the help of Bill and Melinda
Gates, and the formation of the Borlaug Global
Rust Initiative.
Over the course of his career, he was awarded
a shocking number of accolades.
In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, there
was also the Congressional Gold Medal, the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Public
Welfare Medal from the National Academy of
Sciences… the list goes on and on, and includes
more than 50 honorary doctorate degrees from
institutions around the world.
He didn't just received awards, he gave them,
too.
In 1986 — with the help of General Foods
— he established the World Food Prize, an
endowment of $250,000 to those who have gone
above and beyond to eliminate world hunger
and poverty.
According to his daughter, he truly did work
up until the day he died.
That was September 12, 2009; he passed away
at his Dallas, Texas home after a battle with
lymphoma.
His daughter later said that he had always
considered his work unfinished, and his last
words were ones of concern — he was worried
about the farmers in Africa who were still
struggling.
Over the course of his life, Borlaug was credited
with saving somewhere around a billion lives
with his Green Revolution, and even said himself,
"There are no miracles in agricultural production,"
even though the families he saved with his
high-yield crops may have a different opinion.
But long-term, things are less clear.
When food riots broke out among the starving
in 2008, Borlaug's wheat strains covered about
80 million hectares of the planet's surface.
The problem was the same — people were multiplying
too fast for the food supply.
Those touched by the Green Revolution in Asia
were feeling something else — farms were
consolidated into the hands of the rich.
The toll of these high-maintenance crops was
starting to show; dams were built, waters
were drying up, and those that were still
running contained high amounts of the same
fertilizers required for getting those high
yields.
His efforts in Africa faced roadblocks that
have proved all but insurmountable.
A lack of infrastructure made getting the
massive amount of fertilizer to the farmlands
difficult, and irrigation was another challenge.
But back in 1970, when he accepted his Nobel
Prize, Borlaug seemed to know that these challenges
were not going to go away easily.
He said:
"It is true that the tide of the battle against
hunger has changed for the better… but ebb
tide could soon set in, if we become complacent.
[...] civilization as it is known today could
not have evolved, nor can it survive, without
an adequate food supply.
The first essential component of social justice
is adequate food
for all mankind."
