On October 20, 1970, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Norman E. Borlaug for saving hundreds of millions of lives. His work researching and developing genetically resilient and improved strains of wheat, while initially an economic assignment to improve the fates of the Mexican trade deficit, led to the development of crops that would be able to meet the needs of an exploding global population and rescue entire continents from famine and death.
Originally from Iowa, Borlaug had been interested in nature, specifically plants, his whole life. He'd studied forestry at college, and worked in the remote wilderness as a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. He took a job a Dupont to pay the bills, before being recruited for a special project by the Rockefeller Foundation. They were working with the Mexican government to set up a research effort to increase the productivity of Mexican wheat farmers. Borlaug initially turned it down, rejecting the prospect of moving his young family to a new country, but finally relented and took charge of the with which he would change the world.
Borlaug and his team were responsible for a number of innovations that increased wheat crop yields dramatically. The first target was rust, the colloquial name for a variety of fungi that attack crops, essentially stealing their nutrients and then using them as hosts for reproduction. Rust is highly specialized and each strain is only compatible with a specific breed of crop. Most wheat at the time Borlaug began his work in the 1940’s was of a pure and singular genetic stock, making it highly susceptible to rust. Borlaug and his team performed thousands of cross-breedings to create a generation of genetically varied, and thus rust resistant wheat strains. While rust still preys on wheat and many other crops today, Borlaug’s work has slowed the spread of this dangerous fungus.
While controlling rust was important, Borlaug’s most dramatic contribution came in the form of developing his semi-dwarf wheat. Wheat had been grown the same way for thousands of years, but there was an inherent problem which had been exacerbated by modern farming techniques. Breeding wheat to increase the grain yield resulting in a phenomenon called lodging, where the weight of the grain at the top of the stalk would cause the whole stalk to fall over. With the addition of highly nutrient fertilizers, this happened more often as the plants grew more rapidly. Overall, this resulted in reduced grain yields. To solve this, Borlaug combined different strains of wheat to create a plant with a much stronger stalk that only grew one-half to two-thirds as tall as the regular stuff, but produced just as much, if not more grain. He then combined this strain with his rust-resistant strains to create a much higher yield and less vulnerable crop. It would change the world.
In Mexico, where Borlaug performed nearly all of his research, wheat yields increased six fold as a result of his efforts. In India and Pakistan, where population growth was booming and widespread famine was following, Borlaug’s wheat came to the rescue. Between the years of 1965, when these Asians nations began importing Borlaug’s seeds, and 1970, wheat production nearly doubled. Without increasing effort, farmland acreage, or investment, these nations that were struggling to find a way to feed their people hit the jackpot with Borlaug’s wheat. Not only did it save lives, but it made these countries more economically independent and viable in the global market.
Borlaug was not awarded a Nobel Prize for science or agriculture; it was for peace. His innovation diffused a tense situation, and pushed off the prospect that humanity would grow too fast to feed itself. Borlaug cautioned that his contributions had only postponed the issue, and that humans would need to face facts and slow population growth or else find themselves in this situation yet again. But, at the time and today still, he is rightfully hailed as a hero. In the speech awarding Borlaug his prize, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee remarked “The world has been oscillating between fears of two catastrophes - the population explosion and the atom bomb. Both pose a mortal threat. In this intolerable situation, with the menace of doomsday hanging over us, Dr. Borlaug comes onto the stage and cuts the Gordian knot. He has given us a well-founded hope, an alternative of peace and of life - the green revolution.”