A central
figure in the "green revolution", Norman Ernest Borlaug
(March 25, 1914- ) was born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, to Henry
and Clara Borlaug. For the past twenty-seven years he has
collaborated with Mexican scientists on problems of wheat
improvement; for the last ten or so of those years he has also
collaborated with scientists from other parts of the world,
especially from India and Pakistan, in adapting the new wheats to
new lands and in gaining acceptance for their production. An
eclectic, pragmatic, goal-oriented scientist, he accepts and
discards methods or results in a constant search for more
fruitful and effective ones, while at the same time avoiding the
pursuit of what he calls "academic butterflies". A vigorous man
who can perform prodigies of manual labor in the fields, he
brings to his work the body and competitive spirit of the trained
athlete, which indeed he was in his high school and college
days.
After completing his primary and secondary education in Cresco,
Borlaug enrolled in the University of Minnesota where he studied forestry.
Immediately before and immediately after receiving his Bachelor
of Science degree in 1937, he worked for the U.S. Forestry
Service at stations in Massachusetts and Idaho. Returning to the
University of Minnesota to study plant pathology, he received the
master's degree in 1939 and the doctorate in 1942.
From 1942 to 1944, he was a microbiologist on the staff of the du
Pont de Nemours Foundation where he was in charge of research on
industrial and agricultural bactericides, fungicides, and
preservatives.
In 1944 he accepted an appointment as geneticist and plant
pathologist assigned the task of organizing and directing the
Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program in Mexico. This
program, a joint undertaking by the Mexican government and the
Rockefeller
Foundation, involved scientific research in genetics, plant
breeding, plant pathology, entomology, agronomy, soil science,
and cereal technology. Within twenty years he was spectacularly
successful in finding a high-yielding short-strawed,
disease-resistant wheat.
To his scientific goal he soon added that of the practical
humanitarian: arranging to put the new cereal strains into
extensive production in order to feed the hungry people of the
world - and thus providing, as he says, "a temporary success in
man's war against hunger and deprivation," a breathing space in
which to deal with the "Population Monster" and the subsequent
environmental and social ills that too often lead to conflict
between men and between nations. Statistics on the vast acreage
planted with the new wheat and on the revolutionary yields
harvested in Mexico, India, and Pakistan are given in the
presentation speech by Mrs. Lionaes and in the Nobel lecture by
Dr. Borlaug. Well advanced, also, is the use of the new wheat in
six Latin American countries, six in the Near and Middle East,
several in Africa.
When the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in cooperation with the
Mexican government established the International Maize and Wheat
Improvement Center (CIMMYT), an autonomous international research
training institute having an international board of trustees and
staff, Dr. Borlaug was made director of its International Wheat
Improvement Program. In this capacity he has been able to realize
more fully a third objective, that of training young scientists
in research and production methods. From his earliest days in
Mexico he has, to be sure, carried on an intern program, but with
the establishment of the Center, he has been able to reach out
internationally. In the last seven years some 1940 young
scientists from sixteen or so countries (the figures constantly
move upward) have studied and worked at the Center.
Dr. Borlaug is presently participating in extensive
experimentation with triticale, a man-made species of grain
derived from a cross between wheat rye that shows promise of
being superior to either wheat or rye in productivity and
nutritional quality.
In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Borlaug has received
extensive recognition from universities and organizations in six
countries: Canada, India, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan, the United
States. In 1968 he received an especially satisfying tribute when
the people of Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico, in whose area he
did some of his first experimenting, named a street in his
honor.
Selected Bibliography
Borlaug, Norman E., "The Impact of Agricultural Research on
Mexican Wheat Production", Transactions of the New York
Academy of Science, 20 (1958) 278-295.
Borlaug, Norman E., "Mexican Wheat Production and Its Role in the
Epidemiology of Stem Rust in North America",
Phytopathology, 44 (1954) 398-404.
Borlaug, Norman E., Wheat Breeding and Its Impact on World
Food Supply. Public lecture at the Third International Wheat
Genetics Symposium, August 5-9, 1968. Canberra, Australia,
Australian Academy of Science, 1968.
Borlaug, Norman E., "Wheat, Rust, and People",
Phytopathology, 55 (1965) 1088-1098.
Borlaug, Norman E., and others, "A Green Revolution Yields a
Golden Harvest", Columbia Journal of World Business, 4
(September-October, 1969) 9-19.
Brown, Lester R., "The Agricultural Revolution in Asia",
Foreign Affairs, 46 (July, 1968) 688 - 698.
Brown, Lester R., Seeds of Change: The Green Revolution and
Development in the 1970's. New York, Praeger, 1970. Contains
a bibliography.
Freeman, Orville, World without Hunger. New York, Praeger,
1968.
The Green Revolution: A Symposium on Science and Foreign
Policy. Proceedings before the Subcommittee on National
Security Policy and Scientific Developments of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 91st Congress, First
Session, December 5, 1969 (#38-612) J. Washington, D.C., U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1970.
Hardin, Clifford M., ed., Overcoming World Hunger.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1969.
Johnson, David Gale, The Struggle against World Hunger.
New York, Foreign Policy Association, 1967.
Ladejinsky, Wolf, "Ironies of India's Green Revolution",
Foreign Affairs, 48 (July, 1970) 758-768.
Myrdal, Gunnar, The Challenge of World Poverty: A World
Anti-Poverty Program in Outline, chap. 4, "Agriculture " pp.
78-138. New York, Pantheon Books, 1970.
Paarlberg, Don, Norman Borlaug: Hunger Fighter. Foreign
Economic Development Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
cooperating with the U.S. Agency for International Development
(PA 969). Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office,
1970.
"Statement to the Press" from Dr. J. George Harrar, President of
the Rockefeller Foundation. New York, The Rockefeller Foundation,
October 21, 1970.
"U.S. Agronomist Gets Nobel Peace Prize", the New York
Times (October 22, 1970) 1.
Wharton, Clifton R., Jr.,"The Green Revolution: Cornucopia or
Pandora's Box", Foreign Affairs, 47 (April, 1969)
464-476.
From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972
This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1970