« Principles of economics quote of the day | Main | Caplan on peak load pricing »
September 18, 2006
Still feeding the world at age 92
This is nice to see. Norman Borlaug has received some press lately. In the Opinion Journal...
Who? Norman Borlaug, 92, is the father of the "Green Revolution," the dramatic improvement in agricultural productivity that swept the globe in the 1960s. He is now the subject of an admiring biography by Leon Hesser, a former State Department official who first met Mr. Borlaug 40 years ago in Pakistan, where they worked together to boost that country's grain production. "The Man Who Fed the World" describes, in a workmanlike way, how a poor Iowa farm boy trained in forestry and plant pathology came to be one of humanity's greatest benefactors.
...
Whether bread induces peace is a question for another day. It certainly kills hunger and saves lives. Contrary to Mr. Ehrlich's bold pronouncement, hundreds of millions of people did not die for lack of food. Far from it. Despite occasional local famines caused by armed conflicts or political mischief, food is more abundant and cheaper today than ever before in history. It is an absurd travesty that Mr. Ehrlich is still much better known than Mr. Borlaug, but perhaps Mr. Hesser's biography can begin to right the balance.
Mr. Borlaug is still tirelessly working to keep hunger at bay. He remains a consultant to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico and president of a private Japanese foundation working to spread the Green Revolution to sub-Saharan Africa. He believes that biotechnology will be crucial to boosting world food supplies in the coming decades and decries the underfunding of the world's network of nonprofit agricultural research centers.
He also laments the unnecessary suspicion with which biotech is treated these days. "Activists have resisted research," he notes, "and governments have overregulated it." They both miss the point. "Responsible biotechnology is not the enemy: starvation is."
And in The Economist...
NORMAN BORLAUG, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1970 for his role in the green revolution, remains as sturdy and “high-yielding” as the varieties of wheat he helped to invent. Last week, at the age of 92, he gave a stirring lecture in Washington, DC, calling for a renewed effort to bring his revolution to Africa, the one continent it bypassed first time around.
The Economist does not mention Hesser's new biography.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation posted this on their blog. (I didn't know the CBC had a blog. I may have to check that out more often.)
Joining forces with the Rockefeller Foundation, the Gates foundation will immediately pump $150 million into seed research. Already the Rockefeller scientists say they have a developed a new strain of rice that could increase yields in West Africa five times.
...
Noting Borlaug's work took 20 years before it met with ultimate success, Bill and Melinda Gates promised their foundation will stay the course in the fight against African poverty.
It's clear the world's richest countries have not dented African hunger and poverty.
Private sources and philanthropy will finance Borlaug's ideas that worked so well years ago.
Give them better seed and resources. Help them grow more food.
Finally, for those who desire even more, the presentation links are here (transcript, video, and slides).
Posted by William Polley at September 18, 2006 03:41 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.williampolley.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/602
Comments
Echoing Borlaug, the Gates and Rockefeller have launched a push for a green revolution in Africa based on many of Borlaug's ideas.
See washington post editorial:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/17/AR2006091700431.html?nav=rss_opinion
And press releases:
http://pienso.typepad.com/pienso/2006/09/gates_and_rocke.html
Posted by: Pienso at September 18, 2006 04:18 PM