Dr Norman Borlaug, the father of the “Green Revolution” whose high-yield crop innovations were responsible for bumper harvests across the fields of states like Punjab in the 1970s, died Saturday at his home in Dallas, Texas. Dr Borlaug, a Nobel Prize-winning agricultural scientist, was 95.
In a phone interview with this correspondent last year, Dr Borlaug had passionately defended India against accusations from then President George W Bush that it, along with China, was responsible for the food shortage in the US. Bush had blamed the increased demand of the booming middle classes in both these countries for the shortage of key staples in the US. He said it was a consequence of India’s ban on the export of wheat and non-basmati rice that prices in US stores had skyrocketed.
“They are doing what any reasonable government would do,” Dr Borlaug had said of the Indian government’s actions.
Dr Borlaug blamed the West's obsession with developing biofuels for the shortage. “We are mixing together two things that shouldn’t be together,” he had cautioned.
Dr Borlaug was a robust 94-year-old at the time of our interview — his voice strong and clear, his thoughts sharp and befitting those of a Nobel laureate. He died of complications related to cancer.
“More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to provide bread for a hungry world,” Nobel Peace Prize committee chairman Aase Lionaes said in presenting the award to Dr Borlaug. “We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace.”
Many experts credit the “green revolution” with averting global famine in the second half of the 20th century critics and saving billions from starvation. In India, grain yields more than
quadrupled.
In 2004, Dr Borlaug said: "Three or four decades ago, when we were trying to move technology into India, Pakistan and China, they said nothing could be done to save these people, that the population had to die off."
Food security is once again a big concern in India. Jacob Lew, US Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources who recently visited India, said at a briefing in Washington on Friday that at meetings in India, he was struck by the fact that "food security is not thought of as a domestic issue in India; it’s thought of as a national security issue."
While many analysts in India are now calling for a second green revolution, Dr Borlaug had his share of critics. These people, whom the scientist derided as "greenies," oppose the use of genetically modified crops. Asked whether the benefits of such crops outweigh the harmful effects, Dr Borlaug shot back: "If we hadn't used the so-called Green Revolution technology of the 1960s, we would have been unable to produce the food that changed India and China and Pakistan to food-adequate nations. India became self-sufficient. Had this not happened - this Green Revolution - what kind of mess would the world be in now?"
When asked what advice he would give to governments grappling with the food crisis, his response was simple: "Use some common sense."
