We’re really pleased to hear that people enjoy the video, and we hope that it draws attention to the series of articles and interviews that we will be publishing on the Biofortified Blog throughout the coming year.
Now you can get Norman Borlaug on your cell phone! We have produced a ringtone based on the music video, to remind you whenever you get a call (or a call from your boss, spouse, or department chair) to Play it Hard! The Ringtone is available in two formats, Ogg Vorbis and mp3.
Norm Bourlag. Photo by Glen Stubbe via the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
As I write this, the agricultural community has just finished a week acknowledging and celebrating the work of Norman Borlaug. Borlaug, of course, is widely known as the father of the Green Revolution, having increased the production of staple crops (particularly wheat) around the globe to unprecedented levels. He single-handedly stymied Malthusian predictions of inevitable global starvation, thereby changing the global perspective on agricultural production. While this is due in part to Dr. Borlaug’s untiring and persistent work, it is probably less widely acknowledged that the great accomplishments he achieved were largely made possible by the system he used to deploy them. His work was funded by private grants and he freely gave away his work, even to the point of begging or forcing farmers and politicians to take the seeds he had created. Perhaps to more long-term effect, he actively sought out students from around the world to come and train with him to learn his methods and techniques so they could be applied worldwide. This generosity even extended to the peasant children whose curiosity led them to follow Borlaug around his plots in rural Mexico. Harry H. Stine. Photo via Forbes list of the world’s billionaires.
I was struck by the stark contrast that I found in a recent article at Forbes.com, outlining the story of Harry H. Stine. Like Borlaug, Stine too had his beginnings on a poor farm in the American Midwest. Early on, he too saw the potential of breeding plants (soybeans) to increase productivity. The methods he chose to leverage this, however, were quite different. Stine sought to protect his genetic creations by contractually preventing growers from reusing his seeds. Breeders could access his work only through licensing agreements giving royalty payments to Stine’s businesses. In a move reminiscent to Bill Gates, he snared a long term licensing arrangement with a large newcomer to the seed industry, Monsanto, thereby ensuring his enterprise would grow to the billion dollar worth it is now [Edit: As Gillian has pointed out below, there were other companies as well such as DuPont, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer]. Like Borlaug, he is not content to rest, however, and has set his sights on doubling corn yields in the near future using breeding and management techniques.
I don’t pose these two together to pass judgment on them, and I anticipate that some would even object to me putting them side by side. I admit that even I have some personal conflict as to the right or wrongs here. There can be no denial, however, that both men have greatly influenced modern agriculture. Both have pushed the expectations of their respective crops beyond what was thought possible. Both have given the world useful products and enhanced the lives of growers who use them. The products of both have also led to some detrimental social and environmental consequences. I suppose one could argue that even Norman Borlaug’s achievements were only possible through the wealth of capitalism (he was largely funded through the Rockefeller Foundation). Yet, I still find the contrast interesting. These two people, with different philosophies, have both influenced the global system of agriculture and the respective lives of so many. In our concerns for the food production system, we tend to spend the majority of our time examining the minutia, the details of certain production systems, techniques or technologies, while in actuality, the path we ultimately end up on may simply come down to the human nature of a few individuals.
Written by Guest Expert
Bill Price has a PhD in plant science. He has worked in agricultural research for nearly 40 years and is currently a statistician in the College of Agriculture at the University of Idaho. His work includes diverse topics including but not limited to dairy science, human nutrition, weed science, and benthic microbiology.
Written by Steve Savage. Graphs by Steve, based on FAO and Geohive data.
Norman Borlaug would have been 100 years old last week. He has been called “The Man Who Fed The World,” and “The Father of The Green Revolution.” Norm Borlaug was the first plant pathologist to be awarded a Nobel Prize (1970) – for contributions to world peace. For all of use who are fellow plant pathologists, his work has been particularly inspiring.
It is a good time to look back at how the challenge of feeding the world population was met during Borlaug’s career, because we have a similar challenge ahead of us. The chart below shows global population from 1950 with a projection to 2100. I’ve been looking at food production data available from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAOSTAT). If we look at the half century since FAO started tracking it in 1960, global population increased by 3.89 billion. Between 2010 and 2060, global population is projected to rise by another 3.04 billion.
Between 1960 and 2010, production of most crops did manage to keep up with population growth and for many crops there was actually more available per person in 2010 than in 1960. Living standards also improved in many parts of the world, which meant that people were able to enjoy that per capita increase. Fertility rates have declined with the education of women combined with improvements in living standards and food security. It is projected that global human population will level off by around 2100 due to these factors.
The increase in food production during Borlaug’s era was mostly achieved through increased yield on each acre or hectare grown, not from farming more land. That was made possible by agronomic improvements, including the breeding advances that came from the work of Borlaug and many others.
In the graph above, the two bottom, green bars show the global crop area in the window 1960-65 (1.09 billion hectares) and 2005-10 (1.45 billion hectares). The increase, shown in the red bar, is 362 million hectares. That is an enormous amount of land, but without increased yield, it would have taken nearly 3.1 billion hectares (blue bar) to have provided the amount of food that was available to the world by 2010. That effectively means that the global farming community, and those that aided it with technologies, advice and expertise, “saved” more than 1.6 billion hectares of land from being converted from a natural state into farmland. Realistically, there is not that much land which could ever be farmed.
Many of Borlaug’s contributions were to the staple food crop – wheat.
Wheat is not a single crop, but a collection of many different types of wheat grown for different kinds of food ranging from hearty breads, to pasta, to crackers, to flat breads to soft noodles. By the end of this 50 year window, the world’s wheat farmers were producing 2.69 times as much wheat as in 1960. However, 97% of that increase (green part of the bar) was enabled by higher yields. Only 10 million more hectares were being grown. That meant that the world could continue to have enough wheat without the need for adding 346 million more wheat hectares. That is the legacy of Borlaug and the other participants in the Green Revolution.
The story with rice is almost as positive. In 2005-10, humanity had access to 2.9 times as much rice as in 1960-65, and 83% of the increase was attributable to yield with 39 million new hectares added. That meant that there were 187 million hectares which did not need to be added to the rice production base.
The story behind these higher yields is complex and varies across geographies. The details of how we might continue this sort of progress through 2060 are also complex and will involve new challenges such as climate change. Even so, on this important anniversary it is fitting to look back at the remarkable accomplishments of the past to find inspiration for the challenges of the future. Let us hope that at the 150th anniversary of Norm Borlaug’s birth people will once again be able to look back and tell this kind of story. A story about humanity continuing to be fed, but without having had to add much if any new farmed land. Even into his 90s, Borlaug continued to be an articulate proponent for letting farmers use the full toolbox of technologies, including biotechnology, to pursue such goals. Now it is up to us to continue to make that case.
Written by Guest Expert
Steve Savage has worked with various aspects of agricultural technology for more than 35 years. He has a PhD in plant pathology and his varied career included Colorado State University, DuPont, and the bio-control start-up, Mycogen. He is an independent consultant working with a wide variety of clients on topics including biological control, biotechnology, crop protection chemicals, and more. Steve writes and speaks on food and agriculture topics (Applied Mythology blog) and does a bi-weekly podcast called POPAgriculture for the CropLife Foundation.
The International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) and Biology Fortified have produced a special video tribute to the late Dr. Norman Borlaug, a legendary CIMMYT scientist who developed high-yielding, semi-dwarf wheat that started the Green Revolution which is credited with saving over 1 billion people from starvation. The release of this tribute coincides with The Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security, on what would have been the 100th birthday of Dr. Borlaug. His message of increasing food production and the importance of using science in this effort are still important today – perhaps more than ever as the world has over 7 billion people and still growing.
To follow this event, go to www.borlaug100.org, and follow the #borlaug100 hashtag in social media. For more information about CIMMYT, visit www.cimmyt.org. Continue reading “Play it Hard – A Tribute to Dr. Norman Borlaug”→
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