The story of how one agronomist prevented mass famine in the Third World during the 60s and 70s is proof that not all heroes wear capes. It also shows how some people can be punished for feeding the poor.
Borlaug was born in Cresco, Iowa to a family of farmers. He attended the University of Minnesota and after earning a P.h.d. in plant genetics in 1942 went to work as a microbiologist at DuPont.
In 1944, the Rockefeller Foundation, with assistance from the Mexican government, created the Office for Special Studies. It was to employ Mexican and American scientists in improving agricultural yields. The Mexicans saw this as a way to boost their economic progress. Borlaug was hired at the Office, despite DuPont offering to double his salary if he stayed.
During his time in Mexico, he managed to breed new types of wheat with thicker steams that could grow taller without falling over and could resist stem rust. By 1963, 95% of Mexican wheat was Borlaug’s dwarf variety. His work meant more prosperity for Mexican farmers.
In the 60s, India was still a byword for desolation, poverty, and malnutrition. The country was extremely dependent on food aid, and when war broke out with Pakistan, both were on the brink of famine. Borlaug worked his magic once again. India soon became a net exporter of grain. And Paul Ehrlich’s predictions that the world was on the brink of a Malthusian disaster were falsified.
It’s estimated that Borlaug’s work saved 1 billion people from famine. It also had environmental benefits, because more food could be grown on a given plot of land, far fewer trees needed to be cut down for arable land.
In the 1980s, Borlaug was preparing to take his “green revolution” to Africa. But then, the people at Greenpeace whipped up hysteria about his farming methods being unsustainable and destructive, all while happily eating food grown by the same or even more unsustainable methods. They convinced the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations to cut funding. Borlaug did not mince words against his critics saying:
"Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things"
After the Ethiopian famine, Borlaug founded a new effort with help from the Nippon Foundation in Japan called the Sasakawa Africa Association. Sadly it was not as successful as efforts elsewhere. That was probably more caused by Africa’s poor institutions compared to the other places he worked than with a lack of funding.
Borlaug was tireless in his efforts. Even into his 90s he continued to work on his humanitarian efforts. He died in 2009. His legacy is the fact that India can feed 1.3 billion people today more easily than it could feed 470 million in 1965.