Norman Borlaug: The Controversial Father of the Green Revolution

**Norman Borlaug: Controversial Father of the Green Revolution**

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When it comes to a person’s goals, dreams, and life’s work, few pursuits seem more worthy than alleviating world hunger. Surely, bringing food to the starving masses, introducing crops to barren areas of the world, and averting famine, death, and disease is a lofty ambition… isn’t it? Norman Borlaug truly believed so, and he dedicated his life to creating crops that would relieve food shortages across the globe. Even though his name is not widely recognized, there’s no denying that he shaped the world’s food supply in ways that are still felt today—both positively and negatively.

Borlaug was born in 1914. He lived through World War I, started college during the Great Depression, and witnessed the American Midwest turn into the Dust Bowl. It was during this time that he decided to spend his life introducing high-yield crops to areas that could benefit from them. This decision turned out to be surprisingly controversial. Murmurs of discontent and cynicism began in the 1980s, and over the following decades, Borlaug’s methods came under increasing scrutiny. He remained resolute, though, and whether the world benefited from his work or was harmed by it is still up for debate.

**Growing Up on the Farm**

While some people find their calling late in life, others have their life’s work shaped by their earliest memories. That was certainly the case with Norman Borlaug; born on March 25, 1914, he grew up on a small farm in Iowa. His childhood was shaped by hard work and subsistence farming—farming that yields just enough for the survival of the family, with little or nothing left over for sale or profit. It was an incredibly hard life, made even more challenging by the fact that this was an era before mechanization and tractors. For much of his youth, there wasn’t even electricity.

When he enrolled in school in 1919, it was a mile and a half each way. He thrived in school and on the farm, where he spent his hours doing chores he had been tasked with since he could walk: collecting eggs, pulling weeds, and feeding the chickens. As he got older, the chores became more difficult, and he did everything from caring for the animals to separating cream from the milk. During harsh times, he would carry hot soup to neighbors who had been quarantined in their homes. Living through such hardship undoubtedly gave him a deep appreciation for struggles. In Borlaug’s case, he became determined to alleviate them for others.

With little time for extracurricular activities, it may have seemed like a given that young Borlaug would grow up to take over the family farm. However, his 7th-grade teacher—who was also his cousin—recommended he be sent to high school, and he was. Cresco High School was 12 miles from the family farm, and there were no buses. Borlaug eventually moved to town, participated in school sports like wrestling and football, and found one of the greatest gifts a child can receive—a teacher who inspired him. His name was Harry Schroder, and he was the Vocational Agriculture teacher.

Borlaug had been raised with a belief in the richness and fertility of Iowa soils and their ability to grow crops that would nurture and sustain the people who lived there. However, when his teacher had the students set up a year-long experiment growing crops in both unfertilized soil and soil augmented with nutrients, the results provided a valuable lesson. The augmented soil yielded almost twice the amount of food, leading to a life-changing realization for Borlaug.

Sometimes, it takes a while for life-changing events to make their mark, though, and Borlaug initially flunked the entrance exam into the University of Minnesota. Not one to shy away from hard work, he enrolled in a junior college and ultimately graduated from the University of Minnesota’s College of Agriculture with a degree in Forestry.

**When the World Turned to Dust**

Borlaug had initially planned on using his degree in forestry, but when the possibility of a job with the Forest Service disappeared, he returned to school for a degree in plant pathology. This was happening during a dark time in America’s history—literally. While Borlaug was busy researching a particular variety of fungal disease, he and his co-researchers discovered that outbreaks of the disease were impacted by international harvest cycles. It was as important a moment as his teacher’s lesson about fertilizers had been.

At the time, something terrifying was forming in the American Midwest: the Dust Bowl. It was an instance of the perfect storm. Post-war demand had sent the need for staple crops skyrocketing, and families hopeful for a better life moved westward to take advantage of government incentives. However, that boom was followed by the Great Depression, and crop prices crumbled. Families found themselves unable to make ends meet, plowed more land, and when drought came along in the 1930s, that land no longer had native grasses to protect it from erosion. Valuable topsoil was swept away in massive dust storms called “Black Blizzards,” darkening the skies for days at a time. Dust and dirt from the Great Plains of the Midwest reached the eastern seaboard and even covered ships in the Atlantic.

Borlaug watched all this with horror, but he also noticed something: areas used for experimentation with high-yield crops seemed to be the least impacted by Dust Bowl conditions. He decided this was the path his life would take. High-yield crops seemed to be the answer to two major problems: they could feed more people and help save countless acres of untouched wilderness. Borlaug believed that if agricultural land was made more productive, there would be no need to convert more land for farming, allowing prairies and wetlands to remain untouched.

**Perfecting Some of the Oldest Crops in the World**

Wheat has been a staple crop for around 10,000 years, and it has changed significantly with the guidance of generations of farmers. By 1944, Borlaug had spent a few years researching bactericides and fungicides, but with the arrival of World War II, priorities changed. He partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation and was transferred to the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT). This is where things became surprisingly controversial.

Within four years, Borlaug succeeded in improving four strains of wheat. His versions were highly resistant to stem rust, the fungal disease he had been studying earlier in his career, and they produced higher yields and matured about two weeks faster than previous strains. He also developed strains of wheat that possessed “daylight insensitivity,” meaning they could be grown almost anywhere in the world, regardless of daylight hours.

Borlaug and his team achieved this by performing thousands of crossings, carefully selecting wheat with desired traits. While it may sound like they were creating an early version of GMO crops, they were not manipulating DNA but rather selecting plants based on individual stalk traits. Journals like Nature consider him one of the early pioneers of the movement, and his family has spoken out about the damage done by anti-GMO sentiment.

The technology Borlaug and his team worked with was not what we have today, but by 1954, they had their “miracle seeds.” Contrary to what many might expect, Borlaug’s miracle wheat was based on dwarf wheat. The shorter the wheat stalk, the less energy and nutrients are wasted on growing an inedible stalk. The short stalks are sturdier, meaning they won’t bend under the weight of their kernels, and there’s less competition for sunlight.

However, there was a catch. These high-yield dwarf wheat seeds required more water and a significant amount of fertilizer to reach their full potential. Borlaug campaigned for the use of organic fertilizers, but obtaining enough organic fertilizer would require raising more livestock, which would consume the crops being grown. This created a cycle with no easy solution—aside from the widespread use of inorganic fertilizers.

Regardless of long-term complications, Borlaug’s new strain of wheat was a massive success almost immediately. By 1956, Mexico doubled its wheat production and no longer relied on imports. By 1963, their production was six times what it had been in 1944. There was no doubt that the varieties of wheat Borlaug cultivated had the potential to change the world, and he became a champion for spreading these high-yield crops to poverty- and famine-stricken areas.

In 1963, Borlaug took his program to Pakistan and India, where he initially struggled to convince them to adopt his wheat as a staple crop. However, conditions were dire, with widespread food shortages. By the time Borlaug arranged for a 35-truck convoy to take seeds to LA and load them onto a ship bound for India, war had broken out—one more obstacle to overcome. When they received the first shipment and planted their first fields, they did so while working near artillery fire. Delays meant the crop didn’t get planted in time, but even so, crop yields rose, mass starvation was averted, and by the mid-1970s, both India and Pakistan became self-sufficient in wheat production. Borlaug was credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives and averting a major famine.

As his high-yield crops spread to countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, and Egypt, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. His roots were firmly planted in America’s Heartland, but his parents had hailed from Norway—a country they had left due to extreme food shortages. Borlaug had set out to solve that problem, and it seemed as though he had.

**A Complex Legacy**

By the 1980s, Borlaug expanded his program to not only bring high-yield crops to Africa but also crop science education. He took on the challenge of removing malnutrition and poverty from towns and villages across Africa, achieving success with the development of a high-nutrition strain of corn called Quality Protein Maize. However, he soon found himself fighting an uphill battle. Lobbyists began attacking his largest supporters, including the Ford Foundation and the World Bank. Because his high-yield crops relied heavily on inorganic fertilizers, environmental lobbyists put pressure on governments to end the export of fertilizer into Africa.

For Borlaug, it was a case of the elite deciding what was best for the poor and starving. He didn’t mince words, stating that lobbyists had never experienced hunger and that if they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, they would be crying out for tractors, fertilizer, and irrigation.

Fortunately for Borlaug, he wasn’t alone in this battle. By 1984, he had allied with two unlikely partners: former American President Jimmy Carter and Ryoichi Sasakawa, a controversial figure with a complex past. Sasakawa, once labeled a “war criminal,” had founded the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, which funneled money into education and various charities. Despite their differences, Borlaug and Sasakawa formed a partnership that led to increased agricultural production in Africa.

**Savior or Destroyer?**

Not everyone was thrilled with Borlaug’s work. Critics, including ecologist Vandana Shiva, condemned high-yield crops for reducing soil fertility and genetic diversity, claiming they contributed to rural poverty and debt. The farming practices he promoted were high-maintenance, leading to questions about sustainability.

Critics also argued that widespread famine served as a form of population control. Borlaug, a lifelong proponent of population control, believed that eliminating hunger went hand-in-hand with it. He recognized that in subsistence farming, families tended to have many children, as they were needed to work the farm. However, when food is plentiful, societies tend to have lower death rates and, in turn, lower birth rates.

Despite the criticism, Borlaug continued his work. In 2003, he visited Uganda and noticed an outbreak of a new type of wheat stem rust disease. Thanks to his vigilance, the USDA and the University of Minnesota confirmed the outbreak and began working on a solution with the help of Bill and Melinda Gates and the formation of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative.

Throughout his career, Borlaug received numerous accolades, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He established the World Food Prize in 1986 to honor those who have made significant contributions to eliminating hunger and poverty.

Borlaug passed away on September 12, 2009, after a battle with lymphoma. His daughter stated that he always considered his work unfinished, and his last words expressed concern for struggling farmers in Africa. Over his lifetime, Borlaug was credited with saving around a billion lives through his Green Revolution. However, the long-term effects of his work remain complex. When food riots broke out in 2008, Borlaug’s wheat strains covered about 80 million hectares of the planet’s surface, but the same issues persisted—people were multiplying too quickly for the food supply.

Borlaug’s legacy is a testament to the challenges of addressing hunger and agricultural sustainability. He once said, “It is true that the tide of the battle against hunger has changed for the better… but the ebb tide could soon set in if we become complacent. Civilization as it is known today could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply. The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.”