By submitting, you consent that you are at least 18 years of age and to receive information about MPR's or APMG entities' programs and offerings. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about MPR, APMG entities, and its sponsors. You may opt-out at any time clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email communication. View our Privacy Policy.
Norman Borlaug looks over some sorghum tests in this Oct. 30, 1996 file photo taken in one of Texas A&M's teaching greenhouses, in College Station, Texas.
File / AP Photo
Agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, the father
of the "green revolution" who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his
role in combating world hunger and saving hundreds of millions of
lives, died Saturday in Texas, a Texas A&M University spokeswoman
said. He was 95.
Borlaug died just before 11 p.m. Saturday at his home in Dallas
from complications of cancer, said school spokeswoman Kathleen
Phillips. Phillips said Borlaug's granddaughter told her about his
death. Borlaug was a distinguished professor at the university in
College Station.
The Nobel committee honored Borlaug in 1970 for his
contributions to high-yield crop varieties and bringing other
agricultural innovations to the developing world. Many experts
credit the green revolution with averting global famine during the
second half of the 20th century and saving perhaps 1 billion lives.
Thanks to the green revolution, world food production more than
doubled between 1960 and 1990. In Pakistan and India, two of the
nations that benefited most from the new crop varieties, grain
yields more than quadrupled over the period.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
"We would like his life to be a model for making a difference
in the lives of others and to bring about efforts to end human
misery for all mankind," his children said in a statement. "One
of his favorite quotes was, 'Reach for the stars. Although you will
never touch them, if you reach hard enough, you will find that you
get a little 'star dust' on you in the process.'"
Equal parts scientist and humanitarian, the Iowa-born Borlaug
realized improved crop varieties were just part of the answer, and
pressed governments for farmer-friendly economic policies and
improved infrastructure to make markets accessible. A 2006 book
about Borlaug is titled "The Man Who Fed the World."
President George Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid present the Congressional Gold Medal to Norman Borlaug.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
"He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than
anybody that has done that much," said Dr. Ed Runge, retired head
of Texas A&M University's Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and
a close friend who persuaded Borlaug teach at the school. "He made
the world a better place - a much better place. He had people
helping him, but he was the driving force."
Borlaug began the work that led to his Nobel in Mexico at the
end of World War II. There he used innovative breeding techniques
to produce disease-resistant varieties of wheat that produced much
more grain than traditional strains.
He and others later took those varieties and similarly improved
strains of rice and corn to Asia, the Middle East, South America
and Africa.
"More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to
provide bread for a hungry world," Nobel Peace Prize committee
chairman Aase Lionaes said in presenting the award to Borlaug. "We
have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also
give the world peace."
During the 1950s and 1960s, public health improvements fueled a
population boom in underdeveloped nations, leading to concerns that
agricultural systems could not keep up with growing food demand.
Borlaug's work often is credited with expanding agriculture at just
the moment such an increase in production was most needed.
"We got this thing going quite rapidly," Borlaug told The
Associated Press in a 2000 interview. "It came as a surprise that
something from a Third World country like Mexico could have such an
impact."
"He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than
anybody that has done that much."
His successes in the 1960s came just as books like "The
Population Bomb" were warning readers that mass starvation was
inevitable.
"Three or four decades ago, when we were trying to move
technology into India, Pakistan and China, they said nothing could
be done to save these people, that the population had to die off,"
he said in 2004.
Borlaug often said wheat was only a vehicle for his real
interest, which was to improve people's lives.
"We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the
first requisite for life," he said in his Nobel acceptance speech.
"For a decent and humane life we must also provide an opportunity
for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing,
good clothing and effective and compassionate medical care."
In Mexico, Borlaug was known both for his skill in breeding
plants and for his eagerness to labor in the fields himself, rather
than to let assistants do all the hard work.
He remained active well into his 90s, campaigning for the use of
biotechnology to fight hunger and working on a project to fight
poverty and starvation in Africa by teaching new drought-resistant
farming methods.
"We still have a large number of miserable, hungry people and
this contributes to world instability," Borlaug said in May 2006
at an Asian Development Bank forum in the Philippines. "Human
misery is explosive, and you better not forget that."
Norman Ernest Borlaug was born March 25, 1914, on a farm near
Cresco, Iowa, and educated through the eighth grade in a one-room
schoolhouse.
"I was born out of the soil of Howard County," he said. "It
was that black soil of the Great Depression that led me to a career
in agriculture."
He left home during the Great Depression to study forestry at
the University of Minnesota. While there he earned himself a place
in the university's wrestling hall of fame and met his future wife,
whom he married in 1937. Margaret Borlaug died in 2007 at the age
of 95.
After a brief stint with the U.S. Forest Service, Norman Borlaug
returned to the University of Minnesota for a doctoral degree in
plant pathology. He then worked as a microbiologist for DuPont, but
soon left for a job with the Rockefeller Foundation. Between 1944
and 1960, Borlaug dedicated himself to increasing Mexico's wheat
production.
In 1963, Borlaug was named head of the newly formed
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, where he trained
thousands of young scientists.
Borlaug retired as head of the center in 1979 and turned to
university teaching, first at Cornell University and then at Texas
A&M, which presented him with an honorary doctorate in December
2007.
"You really felt really very privileged to be with him, and it
wasn't that he was so overpowering, but he was always on,
intellectually always engaged," said Dr. Ed Price, director of
A&M's Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture. "He
was always onto the issues and wanting to engage and wanting your
opinions and thoughts."
In 1986, Borlaug established the Des Moines, Iowa-based World
Food Prize, a $250,000 award given each year to a person whose work
improves the world's food supply. He also helped found and served
as president of the Sasakawa Africa Foundation, an organization
funded by Japanese billionaire Ryoichi Sasakawa to introduce the
green revolution to sub-Saharan Africa.
In July 2007, Borlaug received the Congressional Gold Medal, the
highest civilian honor given by Congress.
He is survived by daughter Jeanie Borlaug Laube and her husband
Rex; son William Gibson Borlaug and his wife Barbie; five
grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
They asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to the
Borlaug International Scholars Fund. It helps students from
developing countries pursue graduate studies or short-term
experiential learning activities at Texas A&M or other land grant
universities in the U.S.
A memorial service for Borlaug has been set
for Oct. 6 at Texas A&M University. It will be at 11 a.m. in A&M's Rudder Auditorium.
Gallery
1 of 2
Norman Borlaug looks over some sorghum tests in this Oct. 30, 1996 file photo taken in one of Texas A&M's teaching greenhouses, in College Station, Texas.
File / AP Photo
2 of 2
Norman E. Borlaug, who was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal Tuesday, is shown here receiving another honor, the National Medal of Science Laureate, from President Bush in 2006. Borlaug, who won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, founded the World Food Prize to honor those who help feed the world.
When it comes to staying informed in Minnesota, our newsletters overdeliver. Sign-up now for headlines, breaking news, hometown stories, weather and much more. Delivered weekday mornings.