Father of Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, Dies at 95

countincognito writes "Norman Borlaug, a genuinely remarkable man and the father of the Green Revolution in agriculture, has died of cancer at his Dallas home aged 95. His life's work on developing high-yield, disease-resistant crops has been credited with having saved an estimated one billion people from famine, and one billion hectares of forest and rainforest from being cleared for agricultural production."

Comments

Public Enemy #1

[bluesatin]

And probably now heralded by most 'green' supporters as some sort of horrific monster that messed with nature to create these crops.

Re:Public Enemy #1

[Kell Bengal]

And yet he undoubtedly saved millions from starvation through his work. The green nutters won't even think about it. They probably have no idea what was done to produce these crops - they wouldn't even care.

Scientists and engineers help find answers and solutions, radicals and reactionaries just complain. When they have a better solution for feeding the world, I'll take them seriously.

Re:Public Enemy #1

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nice straw man argument used to attack environmentalists"

Bullshit. Norman Borlaug was attacked by these (self proclaimed) environmentalists from the moment his innovations started saving millions lives. From the wikiedpia entry:

"...Of environmental lobbyists he stated, "some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. 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""

Re:Public Enemy #1

[Seumas]

More like billions.

Borloug has to be the most influential and under-appreciated man who has ever lived and most will never know or care, because he doesn't have a sex-tape, play basketball or football, or star in movies.

Borloug has not only been on my list of heroes for a very long time, but has been on my list of "guys who will die in the next decade or two during my lifetime that I am dreading."

The world could never possibly thank Borloug enough. If anyone deserves his own holiday, it's this man. If anyone deserves statues and his face on currency and battleships named after him. It's this man.

That such an amazing man who contributed so much in his life died not of old age, but of *cancer* is evidence that there can be no great deity out there watching over everything. If any man deserved a peaceful, painless, quick passing it was this man.

worth noting one additional thing

[Trepidity]

A bit of an emendation:

His life's work on developing high-yield, disease-resistant crops and giving them away for free...

That's what fundamentally made him a good recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He made high-yield new seeds, and encouraged farmers to use them, spread them, replant them in subsequent years, etc., giving them greater food security and freedom. He didn't, to the contrary, patent them, prohibit replanting seeds in subsequent years, and so on. That would have still increased crop yields, but would've made farmers dependent on Borlaug to buy seeds every year, which was the opposite of his intention.

Re:Now we know who to blame for...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this the first line of attack anytime the subject of overpopulation comes up? There are at least a few ways to try to reduce the number of humans expected to be inhabiting this planet years from now other than "offing people". Contraception in poorer areas? Raising the standard of living to statistically lower the number of offspring parents have? Just jumping to "OMG OVERPOPULATION KILL YOURSELF LOLROFL!!@#" doesn't add anything to the debate.

Then again, if they're advocating committing mass murder or genocide for the sake of conserving resources...

I'm sorry you're wrong

[MaizeMan]

1. Borlaug's wheat wasn't GM. He was saving hundred of million of people in the 1960s. GM crops weren't developed for another 30 years.
2. Seeds aren't organic. It's what you do to the them after you plant them that makes food organic or conventional.
3. Ask any of the Indian cotton pickers, who despite living on less than a dollar a day won't pick non-GM cotton because of the huge amount of pesticides they're exposed to, if they don't want GM crops.
4. Not having anything to eat (called starvation) has been proven by scientists to be bad for your health. Borlaug's wheat wasn't more nutritious, it produced more food on the same land, so people who otherwise would have starved didn't.
5. Most of current GM crops don't increase yield (though there's really cool stuff coming out over the next five years). BT crops reduce the use of toxic insecticides. Herbicide resistance crops let us switch from more toxic herbicides like atrazine to less toxic ones like glyphosate and also promote no-till agriculture which reduces the erosion of the top soil we'll need if we ever want to feed our grandchildren.

In conclusion, you seem to know nothing about these topics (food and agriculture and genetic engineering). If you're interested, educate yourself, I wish more people were engaged. Otherwise don't be surprised if no one takes you seriously.