With enormous sadness, the CIMMYT community and its many valued partners and supporters gather in spirit to mourn the passing of Dr. Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, 1970 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, former CIMMYT wheat scientist, and the man whose work saved millions from starvation.
Borlaug led a group of foreign scientists who came to work with Mexican peers in the 1940s, under a joint program of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture. One of the outputs of that program-short-stature, high yielding, disease resistant wheats-sparked a revolutionary movement toward science-based agriculture in developing countries. The development and spread of improved varieties of wheat, rice, and other crops, together with the expanded use of chemical inputs and irrigation, brought dramatic yield increases and relieved hunger in many parts of Asia and Latin America in the 1960s and 70s. Studies have shown that rising farm output contributed appreciably to the near doubling of per capita incomes in Asia between 1975 and 1995. Over the same period, the ranks of the poor declined dramatically, despite a 60% increase in overall population.
Underpinning this so-called “Green Revolution” were Borlaug’s keen insight, unerring conviction, and highly innovative plant breeding approaches. Added to those were his ability to work across disciplines, borders, and continents; to work with and mobilize diverse actors-farmers, policy makers, extensionists-thereby ensuring that useful innovations reached farmers’
fields. Borlaug and his associates, for example, helped train a cadre of developing country researchers who became global allies for development.
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