Borlaug's Words of Wisdom
At 94, Norman Borlaug serves as a consultant, attends occasional conferences, and pens thoughts. Decades ago, while neo-Malthusians were predicting mass famine, Borlaug used Rockefeller Foundation grants to unlock recessive genes and crossbreed different wheat strains, to create new “dwarf” varieties that were resistant to destructive fungi. The shorter plants were also sturdier, put less energy into growing leaves and stalks, and thus had higher yields. He also taught modern farming methods to third world farmers and persuaded governments to lift price controls, thereby generating unprecedented harvests. Mexico became self-sufficient in wheat by 1960, India and Pakistan soon did likewise, and Borlaug next helped China, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries achieve great success with wheat, corn and rice. When the Nobel committee awarded him the 1970 Peace Prize, it said his work had saved a billion lives. Borlaug simply observed that “you can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery.”
Dr. Borlaug later won the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal. In 1985, he began working with former President Jimmy Carter to bring a green revolution to Africa, emphasizing intensive modern farming methods with new hybrid and biotech seeds on existing fields, to reduce the need to slash and burn wildlife habitat as soil nutrients are exhausted. Unfortunately, their progress may be undermined by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and his Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. Annan says biotech crops are unsafe, untested, and likely to enslave poor farmers to global corporations and expensive seeds. He wants to battle Africa’s chronic poverty and malnutrition with “traditional seeds” and methods. Dr. Borlaug fears that would be a devastating failure. As he said during a 2005 biotechnology conference, sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality at the United Nations, he sees no way the world can feed its hungry population without genetically engineered crops, especially if it relies more on biofuels.
Dr. Borlaug has little patience for “well-fed utopians who live on cloud nine but come into the third world to cause all kinds of negative impacts,” by scaring people and blocking the use of biotechnology. These callous activists persuaded Zambia to let people starve, rather than let them eat biotech corn donated by the U.S.A. They also oppose insecticides to combat malaria and fossil fuels, hydroelectric dams and nuclear power to generate abundant, reliable, affordable electricity for poor nations. “Our planet has 6.5 billion people, says Borlaug. “By all means, use manure. You can’t let it sit around. But if we use only organic fertilizers and methods on existing farmland, we can only feed 4 billion. I don’t see 2.5 billion people volunteering to disappear. To feed everyone with organic and traditional farming, we would have to plow millions of acres of forests and other wildlife habitat. If, instead, we continue to use commercial fertilizer and hybrids, and have strong public support for both biotech and traditional research, the Earth can provide sufficient food for 10 billion people.”
His accomplishments have made Norman Borlaug a household name in parts of Africa, though not in America. That’s partly because he did most of his work overseas. But it also reflects the fact that his favorable views on chemical fertilizers and biotechnology put him at odds with many environmentalists, who don’t appreciate his perspectives on these issues. (Truth About Trade & Technology, 4/16/08).
