Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Fed the World

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

Which person can be credited with having saved the most human lives in history? There might not be a direct answer to that question, but one person whose name always comes up is that of Normal Borlaug. Borlaug has been called “Humanity’s Forgotten Benefactor” and was the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. His efforts have been attributed to having saved the lives of over a billion people. Yet, few people know who he is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Which person can be credited with having saved the most human lives in history? There might not be a direct answer to that question, but one person whose name always comes up is that of Norman Borlaug. Borlaug has been called Humanities Forgotten Benefactor and was the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. His efforts have been attributed to having saved the lives of over a billion people. Yet few know who he is. Learn the inspiring story of the man who saved the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong?

ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by Audible.com. Audible is offering a free month of their service and two free audio. books. If you're interested in today's subject, which touches on human demographics, I'd recommend the book The Human Tide, How Population Shaped the Modern World by Paul Morland. It covers how

humanity got to where it is today, how it affects the modern world, and where human population will go in the future. You can get your free audiobook by signing up for a free trial at audible trial.com slash everything everywhere, or click on the link in the show notes. Norman Borlaug was born outside Cresco, Iowa in 1914 on his grandparents' farm. Even though his life would eventually take him off the farm, his thoughts always remained with farming and raising crops. He was a good but not great student. His decision to get a college degree in the 1930s in the Middle of the Great Depression was a huge decision for an Iowa farm boy. He failed the interest exam to the University of Minnesota and entered the school's general college where he was able to transfer after a semester.

He initially intended to pursue a career in forestry, but his life was changed when he attended a lecture by Elvin Stackman of the University of Minnesota's plant pathology department on wheat rust. Rust was a fungus that grew on wheat and other cereal crops and could destroy entire harvest. Stackman had success in breeding wheat crops that were resistant to rust. When Borlaug's plan to join the Forest Service was quashed due to budget cuts, he asked Stackman if he should focus on forest pathology instead. Stackman advised him to focus on plant pathology, which was his field of interest, and he re-enrolled in Stackman's plant pathology program. During his time at the University of Minnesota, he was also an accomplished athlete, having made the semifinals of the Big Ten wrestling tournament. One of the things which struck Borlaug in the 1930s as an agricultural scientist was the Dust Bowl. While many

people thought that increased agricultural mechanization was the problem, Borlaug realized that the areas that practiced high-yield farming had little to no problems. Borlaug wanted to spread the gospel of high-yield farming to other countries, where dust-bowl conditions happened all the time. After having been turned down to serve in World War II because his job had been considered essential, after the war, he turned his attention back to agriculture. In 1944, he took the job as the director of a program in Mexico City, which was run by the Rockefeller Foundation. The goal of the program initially was to transmit modern farming techniques to Mexican farmers. Borlaug, however, soon took the program beyond that and began developing new strains of crops to improve yields and the conditions under which they could grow.

One of his biggest accomplishments was that of improved dwarf wheat. Many people think that long, luscious stalks of wheat is what you want. This isn't necessarily true. The longer the stocks, the more energy the plant puts into stock creation, which is inedible. You want more energy put into the grains, which is what people eat. Also, taller stocks tend to drool. group and fall over past a certain height, which makes them hard to harvest. The semi-dwarf wheat, which was developed in the 1940s through the 1960s in Mexico, is now 99% of the wheat grown

in the world today. This wheat is more resistant to rust, easier to harvest, and is more receptive to fertilization. It also grows quicker, allowing for more crops, with varietals for sunlight and precipitation conditions for different regions. Through the work of Norman Borlaug, Mexico had become self-sufficient in wheat production by 1956 and became a net exporter. By the early 1960s, India and Pakistan were facing severe food shortages and famine. Borlaug proposed that strains of his dwarf wheat could solve the problem by dramatically increasing wheat production. Many people criticized the idea because wheat was never a staple crop in South Asia.

They said people would prefer to eat native crops like rice, lentils, and cassava. Borlaug actually agreed with them, but noted that high-e-eer-eas-eased. yield varietals of those crops hadn't yet been developed, so wheat was the best short-term option for food production. In 1965, as famine was reaching new heights, the governments in India and Pakistan were willing to try anything, so they allowed the importation of dwarf wheat seeds. Borlaug personally led a convoy of 35 trucks filled with seeds through Mexico into the port of Los Angeles, where they were loaded on cargo ships for India and Pakistan. Unfortunately, another war between the two countries erupted as soon as the ship left port.

Despite difficulties with the war and adapting to local conditions, their results were immediate and dramatic. There was a 70% increase in wheat production in the first year alone. By 1968, Pakistan had become self-sufficient in wheat, and India was self-sufficient in all cereals by 1974, proving experts wrong, who in just 1968 was saying it was a fantasy that India could ever feed itself. This effort became dubbed the Green Revolution.

For his efforts in helping to weigh lay famine in South Asia, Norman Borlaug was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize for Peace. In 1984, at the age of 71, he began working with former president Jimmy Carter and Japanese philanthropist Rioshi Sasakawa to bring high-yield agricultural techniques to Africa. His techniques have seen yields triple in many African countries across many crops, including corn, rice, and wheat. In 1987, he helped establish the World Food Prize, which recognized the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world.

Estimates of the impact of his efforts have placed the number of lives he've saved at over 1 billion people and the land which didn't have to be converted from wildlife to agriculture at 1.2 billion hectares. Norman Borlaug passed away in 2009 at the age of 95, having saved the lives of more people than anyone in human history. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James McAla. Today's reviews comes from two people. We have one from Mama Labs who writes, Love It, super amazing podcast with the best host. Highly, highly recommend.

Thank you very much, Mama Labs. And our second one comes from Pasha in Chicago who writes, A must listen, always interesting, a daily treat for your mind. Thanks, Gary. Thanks, Pasha, thanks Mama Labs. And thank all of you who leave reviews over on Apple Podcast. and for all of you who support the show over on Patreon.