Did You Know?

The father of the "Green Revolution"

Research into genetic engineering and plant and forest tree breeding is done at the new Norman E. Borlaug Center for Southern Crop Improvement in Texas.

Few people have quietly changed the world for the better more than plant pathologist and University of Minnesota graduate Norman Borlaug. He's spent most of the past 60 years in the farmlands of Africa, Asia and Mexico fighting world hunger -- and saving, by some estimates, up to 1 billion lives in the process.

Borlaug is best known as the father of the "Green Revolution," which describes a dramatic increase in food production that helped avert widespread famine in Asia beginning in the 1960s.

Thanks largely to a hardy, higher-yielding variety of wheat Borlaug developed, farmers in Pakistan were able to nearly double their production between 1965 and 1970. In India, wheat yields rose from 12.3 million to 20 million tons over the same time period. Today, both countries are self-sufficient in wheat production even though their populations have exploded. Borlaug's high-powered plants eventually were exported to other parts of Asia and the Third World and helped trigger a more than threefold increase in food production between 1961 and 2000.

For the past 20 years Borlaug has shifted his focus to Africa, where the "soils are so poor weeds won't even grow." His goal has been to ensure that drought-plagued regions of the continent -- and the crops grown there like cassava, sorghum and cowpeas -- don't miss out on the benefits of the Green Revolution.

Borlaug, who was a forestry student at the University until a lecture titled "These Shifty Little Enemies That Destroy Our Food Crops" changed his career path, has also played a big part in preserving the world's natural resources.

By enabling farmers to feed more people from the same amount of cropland, the Green Revolution has helped protect forests from coming under the plow.

Most importantly, food is more abundant and cheaper today than ever before in history, in part thanks to Norman Borlaug. For trying his best to make sure people everywhere have enough to eat, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

Further reading

UMNnews: Norman Borlaug: 90 years strong

UMNnews: Feeding the world: Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug continues to do his best

Bread and Peace