Ruminations of an Old Goat

One of the greatest Americans in history, certainly the greatest in the 20th century, died on September 12. I don't get a newspaper, so I can't say how the death was reported there. I do know that if you blinked at the wrong time, you missed the story as an online headline. I blinked. That's why this column didn't appear last week.

During a summer in which we were inundated with cover stories about Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy, Farrah Fawcett and, now, Patrick Swayze, you'd think the media could find a little more time for someone who contributed far more to mankind than every actor and pop star who ever lived. But, of course, this man didn't do the Moonwalk or draft legislation. He wasn't a famous pin-up star or a movie star. In this media obsessed world, he made the mistake of merely feeding people. Despite many honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize (back when it meant something) in 1970, he remained virtually unknown in his own country.

We've got a well-read group here, so many of you may already know who I'm writing about. But if you mention the name Norman Borlaug to the American public in general, far more often than not you'll receive a blank stare in return. They'll be even more confused if you tell them Borlaug was one of the greatest Americans in history and, as far as I'm concerned, one of the greatest men to ever stride this planet.

I've already said Borlaug was known for feeding people. So what, right? Mother Theresa fed people, too. And she ministered to the sick and poor and homeless, as well. No offense to Mother Theresa, but she was piker compared to Borlaug. Yes, she fed and treated and housed thousands of the most wretched people in Indian society. Norman Borlaug fed most of the people in the third world.

Educated as an agronomist, Borlaug helped develop some of the principles of what was called Green Revolution agriculture. You can't sum up Green Revolution in a sentence or two. Suffice it to say that from the Civil War through the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression, a typcial American farm produced 24 bushels of corn per acre. Due to the Green Revolution, a typical acre now produces 155 bushels of corn.

Having seen the power of these agricultural techniques, Borlaug realized they could literally mean the difference between life and death for the poorest people in the world. Starting in 1943 in Mexico, Borlaug began teaching poor farmers how to utilize Green Revolution techniques on their farms. From Mexico, Borlaug traveled to South America, India and Africa. Everywhere he went, crop yields rose dramatically and deaths from starvation plummeted.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich rocketed to fame on the heels of his book The Population Bomb. In the book, Ehrlich claimed India, then suffering through a horrific famine, would never be able to feed its own population. Alas for Ehrlich, Borlaug and his assistants were already in India and Pakistan. Despite the India-Pakistani war that was raging at the time, despite having the fighting so close that, at times, the flash of artillery fire could be seen from their fields, Borlaug's team sowed the first fields of high-yield grain. By 1971, India was producing enough food to feed its population. Borlaug proved Ehrlich wrong in a mere three years, yet more people today will recognize Ehrlich's name than Borlaug's.

Finally, Borlaug turned his attention to Africa. There Borlaug ran into opposition to his ideas. Not from the people of Africa, mind you. No, Borlaug had run afoul of the environmentalists. Borlaug's techniques require lots of fertilizer and some pesticides, anathema to the modern, affluent environmentalists who were rising up in first world countries. While Borlaug lived and worked with the people he was trying to help, people reclining in air conditioned offices whose idea of worrying about food is limited to wondering which wine to serve with their meal were organizing against him.

Tractors? The people of Africa don't need tractors! Their lives are fuller and closer to nature without such modern machines!

Modern farming techniques? Why, they'll put more chemicals in the soil and water and lose their lovely, simple way of life!

Borlaug found such people insufferable, wishing they would have to live for just 30 days under the conditions he lived under for 50 years. Undoubtedly, were that to happen, the environmentalists would be begging for their first world comforts long before the 30 days were up. Equally undoubtedly, once they were back in their comfortable confines, most of them would go right back to doing everything in their power to block agricultural progress in third world countries.

Despite their protests, the environmentalists could not slow Borlaug down. But time did what they could not. Even the greatest of men eventually die. After 95 years, Norman Borlaug's time came to an end. One heart has stopped beating. But one billion hearts beat today because of this amazing, heroic, compassionate man.

Norman Borlaug, the man who fed the world.