Norman Borlaug, R.I.P.:
Norman Borlaug, the Nobel-winning agricultural scientist largely credited with unleashing the "Green Revolution," died yesterday. Here's a profile of him from The Atlantic, "Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity," and a good interview with Ron Bailey at Reason.
UPDATE: More from Ron Bailey here.
However, I was heartened to see the Indian press trumpet his life. I guess a person's perspective changes when they are only a generation or two away from malnutrition.
More than 30 years ago, Borlaug wrote, "One of the greatest threats to mankind today is that the world may be choked by an explosively pervading but well camouflaged bureaucracy."
Sounds more Libertarian than Statist :-)
(It seems to me Borlaug also was always focussed on improving the individual farmers' returns-for-effort rather than overweening statist organizing ala Stalin et al....and Borlaug's program undeniably worked as opposed to Uncle Joe's.....)
Borlaug’s political philosophy appears nonexistent. One later venture teamed a Japanese soft-fascist (funding) and socialist-leaning President Carter (organizing) to fund a crop improvement project: They were willing to save lives when no one else would.
Dr. Borlaug’s life work was based on biological reality to reduce crop area, reduce agricultural chemicals, and increase food crop yield through science. There are consequences from this —farmland loss, increased national parks and monument areas, more disconnect between urban populations and agricultural reality, even illegal immigration. That Norman Borlaug was successful, and we failed to prepare for these results, it is his fault.
From providing India and Pakistan with abundant food to deploring anti-malarial insecticides, throughout his life, Dr. Borlaug was opposed by people who —with every imaginable excuse— objected to
feedingthe poor brown people of the world.PotMeetKettle is a stark example; a reminder of those who would rather starve a billion living breathing human beings than cede one iota of political or economic power.
I suspect he's being ignored partly because he did it without increasing the power of either government or corporations--- so gets ignored by both the left and right. Unlike with some current agricultural research, he didn't patent his improved seeds and require everyone who planet them to acquire a license; and he didn't make the seeds sterile so everyone would have to re-buy their seeds from his company every year. He just produced something massively helpful, and gave it away for free to everyone.
Actually most of Borlaug's research funding came from the private sector, specifically the Rockefeller Foundation.
I was amused by pot meets kettle; indeed it is true that Borlaug's financial supporters were mostly bleeding heart left-libs, and it is true that if market forces had been relied upon, those billion people would be dead -- or never born.
But I think subpatre's take is more thoughtful and accurate.
Curiously, when the World Food Prize was established in order to institutionalize what might be called Borlaugism, it went broke. It was rescued, financially, by John Ruan, another Iowa boy.
And where Borlaug got his funding is immaterial as far as I'm concerned. Most of it I approve of, a very little bit I wouldn't have voted for, but the point is he collected it, focused it, and did great things with it. Philosophies are only as good as their results, and whatever his philosophy was, Norman Borlaug got the best kind of results.
People attempting to make political hay are barking up the wrong tree. Yeah, he used some government money, and a bit from shady sources and yes, PETA and Greenpeace tried to discredit him and in some instances frustrated his efforts (the Zambia debacle, for instance). Doesn't matter. Borlaug represents to me what can be done with science for the good of mankind. If you think it's more important to try to insult opposing political views on an internet board, then as you were. The day you feed a billion or so people, I'll listen to you. Even Jesus didn't manage a trick that big (according to his supporters).
He set out in a modest way, with modest means, to apply his immodest talents to help the world's poorest, hungriest people. And then he did it. He achieved neither fortune nor fame. His reward was the satisfaction of a job well done.
He is easily a saint in my country, and a revered figure across the length and breadth of India. As someone would have mentioned, we the living are greatful to him, that we are living, and in a very large part of the population, ....that we are at all born.
NB, Rest in Peace.
Is there any reason he would not be a strong contender for 'greatest man to have inhabited Earth?'
Who would compete with him for 'greatest man to have inhabited Earth?'
Borlaug strengthened the government's hand immeasurably by enlisting it in his fight to improve farmers' quality of life, and making them dependent on their largesse as they became addicted to resource intensive techniques subsidised by Big Government, merely because it improved their quality of life.
You can draw a direct line from measures like that, to government munificence today which strengthens its hand by patronage vehicles such as stimulus packages etc. The fact that they might have staved off a deep recession, kept people in homes, or stanched, albeit slightly, catastrophic unemployment, is certainly no reason to support them.
He did no such thing. He refused to sterilize his seeds, which meant that once introduced, teh farmers could simply reserve a portion of their harvest to plant the next year, instead of having to buy (or have given to them) more seeds yearly (which would alter my opinion of him greatly). Yes, he used some government money in the research process, but he made no one dependent on the government, in fact, I would argue he did the opposite. He placed the power of food production with the individual, giving people the means to support themselves without further government intervention. If you cannot see the difference between giving a farmer a sack of seeds once and sending a welfare recipient a check monthly, I just don't know what I can do for you. Your stand is not "principled", it's simplistic. There's a line to be drawn between "ends/means" discrimination and just plain idiocy.
Farmers in several countries are addicted to tremendous subsidies for power, water, equipment and seeds, as a result of his legacy. And as a result are dependent on the kindness of the government, and form a reliable drain on natural resources which would have been much better expended as tax subsidies on the rich.
Who are my opponents?
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