Norman Borlaug dies at age 95

[Dogmudgeon]

On Edit: fixed bad format.

Most of us take food for granted.

Norman Borlaug didn't.

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre58c0km-us-borlaug/">Nobel-winning agricultural scientist (Norman) Borlaug dies

...

Borlaug, hailed as a central figure in the "green revolution" that made more food available for the world's hungry, died on Saturday night from cancer complications in Dallas, the university said in a statement.

The "green revolution" -- the development of crops such as wheat that delivered better yields than traditional strains -- is credited with helping avert massive famines that had been predicted in the developing world in the last half of the 20th century.

...

Experts have said his crusade to develop high-yielding, disease-resistant crops saved the lives of millions of people worldwide who otherwise may have been doomed to starvation. His efforts to develop new crop varieties helped alleviate food shortages in places such as India and Pakistan, helping make developing countries self-sufficient in food production.

He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2007, Borlaug also received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor of the United States.

...

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre58c0km-us-borlaug/">There's more ...

--d!

[Dead_Parrot]

1. Hmmm

The question is, did he save people from starving, or did he just put it off so we so starve in greater numbers later?
:shrug:
Just call me Mr Cheerful.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Many in the generations of people he saved from starvation have died from other causes now.

I'm certain they were happy not to starve to death.

[excess_3]

2. just what Bangladesh needs, more people .nt

[Buzz Clik]

4. Let 'em starve.

Ever know anyone from Bangladesh?

[HamdenRice]

5. I was going to post something snarky like, 3,2,1 Malthusians claiming he starved more people...

in the GD thread. I thought it would be a ludicrous caricature.

I was wrong, obviously.

[joshcryer]

6. *sigh*

:(

[Buzz Clik]

7. I won't tell you were wrong, because I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

[HamdenRice]

8. I'm agreeing with you. nt

[Posteritatis]

18. Just what Bangladesh needs

Nice, comfortable First World types to comfortably be upset at the fact that their population, along with most of the rest of the developing world, wasn't devastated by mass starvation in the sixties thanks to this guy.

I really wish your type would drop the pretenses and just flat out admit that you'd prefer people died by the tens of millions; it'd be much more honest.

[GliderGuider]

19. People do die by the tens of millions, every year.

Preference has very little to do with it.

[Posteritatis]

22. It does when someone's offended that not enough of them are dying. (nt)

[GliderGuider]

23. Really? Why?

Is that "someone" in a position to do anything about it? If not what difference is their opinion making to the world other than offending you? Why is holding an opinion that offends you wrong?

[Posteritatis]

24. You said "preference has nothing to do with it"

When someone would prefer that people die, preference clearly does have something to do with it.

Sorry, but I'm going to keep looking down my nose at anyone who, by the standards of the people Borlaug saved, has never wanted for anything in their life if they think it's a bad thing that those people didn't die when they "should" have.

You don't have to be in a position to do something in order to hold an offensive opinion about it. I proudly say "fuck you" to anyone who's bothered that, thanks to this guy, people did not die.

[GliderGuider]

25. I meant that the preference of the people who died had nothing to do with whether they died or not.

Almost everyone prefers, personally, to go on living. Due to my lack of clarity, the discussion has now turned to the question someone's right to hold an opinion.

It's not the opinion that's offensive, it's you who is offended by the opinion. The proof of that observation is that others do not find it offensive at all -- they might agree or be neutral on the subject, and therefore attach no negative emotional charge to it. You may even be offended by the fact that others don't find the opinions offensive -- that again is just your reaction to the situation, and says nothing about the situation itself.

[GliderGuider]

9. Borlaug is apparently credited with saving over a billion people from starvation.

However,he did much more than that. Since Borlaug began his humanitarian efforts, the world population has more than doubled. Since you can't have people without food, It looks to me like Borlaug was largely responsible for the addition of about 4 billion human beings to the globe. That's a remarkably "human"itarian achievement.

[HamdenRice]

10. Written like someone who does not understand agricultural economics

A better conclusion is to say that Borlaug saved millions of acres of rain forest, virgin land, countless endangered species and millions of plants and animals.

Land utilization is elastic. Borlaug enabled people to grow more food on less space. In particular, the Green Revolution benefited existing small scale farmers over "pioneers," increasing the productivity per acre (and hence value) of the land of the former over the land of the latter.

About a decade ago, a student of mine in a seminar on land reform and agricultural economics did a final research paper on the catastrophic program of the Indonesian government to "colonize" the unoccupied islands of the archipelago in order to increase food production, showing that it was a common strategy of southeast Asian countries. For example, in the Philippines, a country that was affected by the Green Revolution more than most, had plans also to colonize virgin forest both on Luzon and on off islands.

If it had not been for the Green Revolution, people would not have just starved and kept their populations lower; they would have colonized virgin lands that under then existing supply, demand and productivity measures, were considered marginal. As population rises, and demand for food increases, in the absence of improvements in productivity per acre, farmers increase acreage. Land that seemed too expensive to clear or too low in productivity, becomes economical as demand increases. That's the essential lesson that the critics of Malthus proved almost 200 years ago, and that, it seems, has to taught to the disciples of Malthus, over and over, day after day, year after year. In Malthus's time, it was thought that England's "marginal land" would never be brought under cultivation; but of course, it was.

In detailed econometric studies of the Philippines in "View From the Paddy," and "Second View From the Paddy" researchers showed that thanks to the Green Revolution (as well as land reform) existing small scale farmers dramatically increased their yields in existing paddy areas, leading to increased incomes and standard of living.

In other words, increasing the productivity per acre tips the scale in farmer decision-making toward improving existing farmland over colonizing new areas. The Green Revolution helps stop the cycle of existing farmers losing productivity, falling into poverty and debt traps, and eventually moving on to new land.

Alternatively, if countries had had neither a Green Revolution, nor an extension of agriculture into virgin lands, the results would have been urbanization, specialization, and rural consolidation, with the newly landless becoming manufacturing workers, with the attendant problems of urban slums and industrial pollution.

That is the legacy of the Green Revolution -- more food from less land, not more people. And less invasion of virgin land.

[GliderGuider]

11. Thanks, that's another way to look at it:

Our current population level was inevitable no matter what happened with agricultural productivity.

So since per-hectare yields seem to be approaching another limit, will we now start expanding our productivity into all those virgin lands we previously kept our hands off of? Is it possible the GR simply delayed the inevitable for 50 or 60 years? After all, there are still 75 million new mouths to feed each year.

On edit:

Of course, we can't know what might have happened if Mrs. Borlaug Sr. had availed herself of family planning and so prevented the appearance of young Norman on the world stage. The possibilities you raise were part of a future that did not manifest when the probability wave surrounding Norman collapsed. That probability bubble also contained population limitation through food supply shortfalls, which also didn't manifest. What we got was what we got - 6.8 billion people, a decimated global ecosystem, rising global temperatures and increasing social stress. I guess we'll just have to start from where we are, and not get overly exercised about might-have-beens.

[HamdenRice]

13. I disagree with several of your premises

"population limitation through food supply shortfalls, " -- that's the fundamental error of Malthusian thinking.

I've never understood the ability of Malthusians to maintain this belief system in the face of massive evidence to the contrary.

The hungriest parts of the world have the highest birthrates. Hunger does not reduce population. Feeding people, educating them, emancipating women and making them feel secure (especially about the survival of children) reduces population.

Even famine (and there's a difference between chronic hunger and famine, which is rarer) has a negligible effect on population growth because the people who die are usually the very old (no longer reproducing) or the very young (whom the fertile famine survivors usually try immediately to replace).

Also, per hectare yields are not reaching their limits in much of the world. In fact, in the hungriest parts of the world, yields are really low. That's why China and the Gulf states are buying up land in Africa.

Lastly, I did not mean to imply that the Green Revolution stopped all invasion of virgin land -- only that it slowed it down, through the decision making of millions of individual farmers, and that had it not been for the GR, conversion would have been much, much higher.

[GliderGuider]

15. I was just saying that there were a lot of ways the situation could have turned out today,

but only one way that it actually did turn out. Borlaug obviously influenced the course of events a lot. Without him things would have been quite different. Different in what way? We'll never know, the nature of quantum mechanics and probability waves makes that information inaccessible. For exactly the same reasons we won't know how things will turn out in 50 years (or even in ten minutes) until we get there.

In the meantime each of us will keep working toward our own personal vision of the future based on our own values. When the future becomes the present it will, as always, be the co-creative result of the constant interplay between all our efforts. There will be a little bit of each of us in it, for better and worse.

[IrateCitizen]

12. A summary of articles on Borlaug from Energy Bulletin -- pros and cons.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50122

[HamdenRice]

14. I like the first paragraph: "The ideas of Malthus continue to live on in the periphery of economics"

The periphery, indeed.

[IrateCitizen]

20. But you probably didn't like these other comments:

Mr. Borlaug neglects to mention that his source of nitrogen nutrients is 3-5% of world production of natural gas, a finite fossil fuel....

Norman Borlaug was a hero. There is no denying that. On the other hand, he was a scientist. In that respect, he was focused, single-minded and convinced that innovations coming from the the small, isolated field in which he worked could come solutions to the problems proposed by Malthus....

Norman Borlaug's innovations have had a great impact on how fossil fuels are used, primarily in the developing world. These changes may or may not effect whether the peak occurs sooner or later but most assuredly will significantly increase the adverse impact of Peak Oil on the third world.

Also noted is that you did not mention the laudatory piece by Michelle Malkin, followed by the comment, Just as Borlaug is the Anti-Malthus for the Cornicopeans, he is the Anti-Environmentalist for the Conservative Right.

Like I said in the original post, pros and cons. Absolute certainty is the province of fools and zealots.

[joshcryer]

21. Well, sure, that's what we take from Borlaug.

What we take is one simple, verified, proven, inevitable, guaranteed, absolute position. Technological innovations happen.

but most assuredly will significantly increase the adverse impact of Peak Oil on the third world

If you accept this, then you are going completely against the fact that "technological innovations happen."

Therefore you learn nothing from Borlaug.

Absolute certainty is the province of fools and zealots.

Refusing to accept theories with no evidence makes one a fool? I can be certain in a given trend, in fact, if I'm wrong about something that's fine. That does not make me a fool, what would make me a fool is listening to ideologies or ideas which have nothing of substance backing them. It's one thing to believe something that has evidence to it, and even refuse to believe anything else unless evidence was presented. It's another thing entirely to just listen and believe the absurdities of various talking heads or pundits or ideologues.

[IrateCitizen]

26. Dude, I wasn't replying to you

But since you jumped in, I'd like to point out the following:

You cited from my first post "but most assuredly will significantly increase the adverse impact of Peak Oil on the third world"

Then, you went on to say, "If you accept this, then you are going completely against the fact that 'technological innovations happen.'"

No, I am acknowledging the simple fact that ENERGY and TECHNOLOGY are not the same thing. While technology can allow us to increase efficiency, in no way can it replace energy. Furthermore, as human society has become more technologically advanced over the past 250 years, our energy usage has skyrocketed.

[GliderGuider]

16. Guardian: Against the grain on Norman Borlaug

Against the grain on Norman Borlaug

Accolades don't come much more gushing than those expressed this week following the death of Norman Borlaug, the agronomist whose lifelong work developing high-yield crops played a major role in heralding the so-called "green revolution" and who has often been credited as the "man who saved a billion lives".

But despite the passionate humanitarian zeal that drove much of his work, he certainly had his critics. The criticism was not so much aimed at the man himself, but for the biotech legacy he played such a major role in creating. After all, this was the man who arguably did more than any other to nurture the era of monocrops, GM foods and the intensive use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilisers. He may well have saved a billion people from imminent starvation, but by doing so, say his critics, he also inadvertently helped to plant the seed for future environmental woes.

Has there ever been a person in human history whose legacy has pivoted so precariously on the fulcrum between good and bad? We will only know the complete answer in the decades to come once the full implications of the world being so reliant on what are now called "conventional" farming methods have been borne out in the context of overpopulation, peak oil, climate change, water depletion and all the other issues now so inextricably linked to modern farming.

Borlaug's vision and subsequent success was underpinned by the widespread availability of cheap oil. His solution for feeding the world was one that could only have ever been dreamed up in that post-war era when the energy source was obvious and unquestioned. But times have changed: with Borlaug's passing we are reminded how impatiently we await a successor to dream up the answer to our battle between rising population levels and sustainable food production.

There are no saints, there are no sinners. There are only men, and Norman Borlaug was one.

[HamdenRice]

17. What a load of counter-factual crap!

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center -- as well as its many sister institutions like the International Rice Research Institute -- save land race, bio-diverse seed varieties and make them available on a non-profit basis.

Saying that Borlaug is responsible for the attempted privatization of genetic plant material is kind of like trying to argue that Bishop Desmond Tutu was responsible for apartheid.

But then again, I had a long debate with an idiot on DU who argued exactly that point -- that Tutu was responsible for apartheid.

So it's no surprise that anyone would come up with an equally insane counter-factual claim about Borlaug.

As the expression goes, on the internet, no one knows your a dog.