Celebrating food - Norman Borlaug's 100th birthday

[Brainfade]

Dr. Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel Peace Prize winner and the father of the Green Revolution, was born on March 25, 1914 in rural Iowa. Today, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, let us celebrate increased crop yields and more efficient agricultural practices, which have combined to provide self-sufficiency in food production for many highly populated 3rd world nations. As a result, these nations have won significant victories in their quest to produce enough food for their billions, and minimize their dependence on expensive imports. They have tools that can help them escape dependence on subsistence farming and the hard, uncertain life that comes with it. None of this progress would have been possible without Dr. Borlaug's tireless work with high-yielding, disease-resistant hybrid wheat varieties. For example, these varieties and the application of his technologies to other cereal crops like rice changed the landscape of agriculture in India. Thanks to the application of Dr. Borlaug's research, India became self-sufficient in food grain production in the late 1970s, a trend that was sustained until the mid-2000s. A key statistic from a recent report on agriculture in India notes: "... analysis indicates that rising output per hectare is the predominant source of agricultural growth for most of the crops and crop groups. ... expansion of agricultural land was the main source of agricultural growth during the period before 1965/66 .... after that, the contribution of increased land area under agricultural production has declined over time and increase in productivity became the main source of growth in agricultural production." (Tripathi and Prasad, 2009) Thus, Dr. Borlaug's work is credited with saving millions of lives that may have been lost to hunger and starvation. Today, let us celebrate this true hero and his work. A couple of biographies: http://appliedmythology.blogspot.com/2014/03/thoughts-about-norm-borlaug-on-100th.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AppliedMythology+%28Applied+Mythology%29 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1970/borlaug-bio.html