79 years and 3 days before I was born, a brilliant man was
born in America. In his lifetime, he won many awards for his achievements and
saved so many lives that people lost count long ago. Yet, very few people know
his name or why it is important.
Norman Ernest Borlaug received in PhD in plant pathology and
genetics in 1942 and then moved to Mexico, where he researched wheat. The
research he conducted in the team of plant pathologist George Harrar led him to
develop various genetically engineered strains of wheat which was high-yield
and disease resistant. His work there spanned sixteen years, during which time
he bred many successful crops. Altogether his work meant that a lot more wheat
could be harvested from any given crop and his work in Mexico alone saved at
least a million people from starvation.
After that, his career took him through numerous starving
communities including places in India, China and various countries in Africa.
In each one, he studied and improved the crops so that more could be gathered
and more people fed. In the mid-1960s, he started to spread his powerful crops
in war-torn India, which saved millions more from acute famine. He took his
crops to Pakistan where wheat yields nearly double and, in the space of three
years, the country became self-sufficient and no longer depended on foreign aid
in order to stave off starvation.
In 1970, Borlaug was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize
for his contribution to the world food supply. At that time, it was estimated
that he had already saved over a billion lives.
When he retired from travelling through starving countries,
he continued to teach and research to continue his legacy. His died of lymphoma
at the age of 95 in December 2009. His achievements saved the lives of more
people than you will ever know. He dedicated his life to easing the suffering
of others and ending hunger in the world and no one can say that he did not
achieve just that many times over. Throughout the course of his life, he was
honoured with numerous awards and prizes for his work in helping others – and
rightly so.
The sad thing is that so many people will never hear his
name. He is no celebrity and he is not taught in schools, except to speciality
students focussing on plant genetics. The amount of people he has saved from
starvation increases every day as more and more people in developing countries
survive on the crop strains that he developed and introduced to their
ecosystems.
But the worst thing about people not knowing about Norman
Borlaug and his amazing work is that it breeds so much ignorance among people
who think they know about genetically engineered food. People campaigning
against GM crops claim that it is harmful to people and that it will mutate
them, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact is that people make
ignorant comments about it and stupid people listen; then stupid people get
into power and they take the crops away from all the people who are benefiting
from them. That wouldn’t be a problem if this wasn’t something that was
necessary to save lives. People are already starving even with GM crops –
without them, the world would not be able to feed two thirds of its population.
It’s only thanks to people like Norman Borlaug that mankind
is becoming truly self-sufficient. Maybe people should stop complaining and
thank him.
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