Norman Ernest Borlaug
American agricultural scientist, plant pathologist, and winner of the
Nobel Prize for Peace in 1970. He was one of those who laid the groundwork
of the so-called Green Revolution, the agricultural technological advance
that promised to alleviate world hunger.
He studied plant biology and forestry at the University of Minnesota
and earned a Ph.D. in plant pathology there in 1941. From 1944 to 1960
he served as research scientist at the Rockefeller Foundation's Cooperative
Mexican Agricultural Program in Mexico. At a research station at Campo
Atizapan he developed strains of grain that dramatically increased crop
yields. Wheat production in Mexico multiplied threefold in the time
that he worked with the Mexican government; "dwarf" wheat
imported in the mid-1960s was responsible for a 60 percent increase
in harvests in Pakistan and India. He also created a wheat-rye hybrid
known as triticale. The increased yields resulting from Borlaug's new
strains enabled many developing countries to become agriculturally self-sufficient.
Borlaug served as director of the Inter-American Food Crop Program
(1960-63) and as director of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement
Center, Mexico City, from 1964 to 1979. In constant demand as a consultant,
Borlaug has served on numerous committees and advisory panels on agriculture,
population control, and renewable resources.