The Man Who Fed the World Passes At Age 95

[JTWood]

Agriculture pioneer Borlaug dies

Norman Borlaug, the man known as the father of the Green Revolution in agriculture, has died in the US state of Texas aged 95.

Prof Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for agricultural innovation and the development of high-yield crops.

The Green Revolution helped world food production more than double between 1960 and 1990 with Asia, Africa and Latin America in particular benefiting.

The Nobel Institute said he had helped save hundreds of millions of lives.
...
Analysts believe the Green Revolution helped avert a worldwide famine in the late 20th century.

A close friend of Prof Borlaug at Texas A&M, Dr Ed Runge, told Associated Press news agency: "He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than anybody that has done that much... He made the world a better place."

[acsguitar]

Holy crap look at that BUD!

[Metroid]

Holy crap look at that BUD!

Someone change the title to "The Man Who Stoned the World..."

[Art Vandelay]

I think he was earnest in his desire to help people, but misguided. I tend to side with the Daniel Quinn theory of food supply and population growth and would argue that Borlaug's innovations have caused an immense amount of suffering across the world. I'm not going to knock the guy, because I think he genuinely believed he was contributing to the greater good (and many others think he did as well), I just don't see it that way.

[StlSluggers]

I think he was earnest in his desire to help people, but misguided. I tend to side with the Daniel Quinn theory of food supply and population growth and would argue that Borlaug's innovations have caused an immense amount of suffering across the world. I'm not going to knock the guy, because I think he genuinely believed he was contributing to the greater good (and many others think he did as well), I just don't see it that way.

Art just disagreed with the idea that helping to solve world hunger is good and right.

There are few things in this world that 99.9% of people agree on, but I think you have managed to find a reason to be in the 0.1% of every one of those debates. Congratulations! Unless I'm missing something. Do you disagree that we need oxygen to live?

[Art Vandelay]

Art just disagreed with the idea that helping to solve world hunger is good and right.

There are few things in this world that 99.9% of people agree on, but I think you have managed to find a reason to be in the 0.1% of every one of those debates. Congratulations! Unless I'm missing something. Do you disagree that we need oxygen to live?

I think solving world hunger would be great, prolonging it, however, not so much. If you have 50,000 people in an area that has the resources to support 45,000, bringing in enough food so that all 50,000 are able to barely survive--and in most cases procreate--only ensures that there will be more people to starve during the next generation.

Maintaining an unsustainable population isn't a good thing for that population (even though it may be good, short term, for individual members of the population). It may seem oxymoronic, but feeding starving people dosn't end world hunger, it proliferates it.

As for needing oxygen to live...maybe long term, but I could survive a little while without it.

[Art Vandelay]

oops

[StlSluggers]

FWIW, Borlaug and Quinn might have agreed in more areas than you think:

In response to extreme critics: "These are utopian people that live on Cloud 9 and come into the third world and cause all kinds of confusion and negative impacts on the developing countries."

I'm not sure of the context there, but it sounds to me like he's talking about the idea that we can make any part of the world livable.