HE was the Iowan farm boy who grew up to have an impact on farms all over the world.
Legendary wheat breeder Dr Norman Borlaug would have turned 100 last week.
He died in 2009, aged 95, credited with saving a billion people from starvation.
Dr Borlaug is considered the father of the Green Revolution – a wave of farm research starting in the late 1960s that changed agriculture worldwide.
He remains one of only seven people to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the US’s highest civilian honour, the Congressional Gold Medal.
Raised on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, Borlaug devoted his career to helping farmers grow food more efficiently.
He headed up the wheat program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico for its first 16 years and remained a part-time consultant to the centre until his death.
His development of high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties would revolutionise wheat production not only in Mexico but India and Pakistan as well as impact in many developed countries.
Dr Borlaug’s legacy continues at the Campo Experimental Norman E. Borlaug (CENEB) – a research station near Obregon in Mexico’s Yaqui Valley where he conducted much of his work and that is still used by CIMMYT.
A statue of Borlaug continues his watch over the next crop.
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4 things you didn't know about Norman Borlaug
- He grew up on a small farm in north east Iowa
- He was a star wrestler in high school and college
- He did a degree in forestry before studying plant pathology
- He was working in a wheat field in Mexico when he found out he'd won the Nobel Prize. He thought it was a joke.
