Would you rather have imperfect ways to grow more food, or let people starve?

I read this BBC report on "the man who helped feed the world."  And, yet again, I was blown away by the man's contributions to making the world a far more peaceful world by making sure that the people are fed.

The man is Norman Borlaug, whose work I have often noted in this blog and have also talked about with students.

As I have often remarked in this blog and elsewhere, a primary trigger for me to get to doing what I do now was the context in which I grew up--born into relative privilege with a great deal of material deprivation all around me.  I did not know how I could ever contribute to help in reducing that deprivation; but, I wanted to at least understand it.

Thus, even in the early semesters in grad school, I was impressed with how much people had invested their time and energy into not only understanding many of those issues but even doing something about them. 

One of those was Norman Borlaug.

In 2019, especially in the obese and overweight US of A where we routinely waste food without giving it a second thought, it might be difficult to imagine that not too long ago there was a real threat of food shortages. And famines.  While there were political reasons, such as Mao's crazy policies, the threat of undernourishment was real.  Which is where Borlaug's contributions in developing better varieties of staples take on remarkable weight.

In graduate school, it was a shock when I also read works that were intensely critical of Borlaug's work.  The volume and magnitude of his criticism seemed to increase with every passing day, especially over genetically modified (GMO) crops.

Borlaug was well aware of his critics even when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  In his acceptance lecture, Borlaug said:

Some critics have said that the green revolution has created more problems than it has solved. This I cannot accept, for I believe it is far better for mankind to be struggling with new problems caused by abundance rather than with the old problem of famine.

He didn't stop there; he added:

One must ask: Is it just to criticize the green revolution, with its recognized accomplishments, for failure to correct all the social-economic ills of the world that have accumulated from the days of Adam and Eve up to the present?

India's farmers, for instance, continue to face immense problems not because of the Green Revolution but because of atrocious politics, which was demonstrated yet again in the latest round of elections.  If the socio-economic structure were different and better, then the rewards of the Green Revolution would have been distributed a lot more equitably than is currently the case.

Above and beyond the Green Revolution, thinking about Norman Borlaug makes me wonder if the bright minds of today are dedicating themselves to the urgent human problems all around, especially in the less affluent countries.

There is a lot more research and development work on the rich people's problems than on the poor people's problems. Viagra is a poster-child for this! The apathy towards malaria and Ebola, always worry me.  Where are the Borlaugs of today?

And in a world in which the United  Nations and its agencies like the FAO, which actively supported Borlaug, have been terribly weakened no thanks to the United States, we are left to the small mercies of philanthropic foundations who tinker at the margins.

There once was a man named Norman Borlaug!