Norman Ernest Borlaug [who died in 2009] was an American agronomist and humanitarian born in Iowa in 1914. After receiving a PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1944, Borlaug moved to Mexico to work on agricultural development for the Rockefeller Foundation. Although Borlaug’s taskforce was initiated to teach Mexican farmers methods to increase food productivity, he quickly became obsessed with developing better (i.e., higher-yielding and pest-and-climate resistant) crops.
As Johan Norberg notes in his 2016 book Progress:
After thousands of crossing of wheat, Borlaug managed to come up with a high-yield hybrid that was parasite resistant and wasn’t sensitive to daylight hours, so it could be grown in varying climates. Importantly it was a dwarf variety, since tall wheat expended a lot of energy growing inedible stalks and collapsed when it grew too quickly. The new wheat was quickly introduced all over Mexico.In fact, by 1963, 95 percent of Mexico’s wheat was Borlaug’s variety and Mexico’s wheat harvest grew six times larger than it had been when he first set foot in the country nineteen years earlier........To Read More....
My Take - It's unfortunate history adds an appendage such as "The Great" onto the names of those who've managed to kill a lot of people through wars of conquest, such as Alexander the Great.
If there ever was anyone that truly earned the right to have the appendage "The Great" after their name, it's Norman Borlaug. In my opinion, he's the greatest person to have lived in the Twentieth Century for the 100 million lives he saved from starvation, and since he lived into the Twentieth First Century, he may be the greatest person to have lived in two centuries.
Borlaug the Great! I like!
What's really sad is almost everyone knows who Rachel Carson was, and she's directly responsible for the deaths of up to 100 million people due to the ban on DDT. Schools and streets are named after her, and yet, the man who saved 100 million people is largely unknown.
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