[Articles and comments for this post submitted by Rick Lakin]
Comment:
I am sure that many arguments in economics have ended as the Malthusian proponent has been stumped by the simple mention of the name Norman Borlaug. Borlaug lived 95 years and, through his efforts gave billions the opportunity to live their lives. The ideas of Malthus continue to live on in the periphery of economics. Will there be another Borlaug that comes along and keeps him there or are we finally approaching the Malthusian vindication?
Norman Borlaug dies at 95; revolutionized grain agriculture and won Nobel Peace Prize
Thomas H. Maugh II, LA Times
Norman Borlaug, the father of the “Green Revolution” who is widely credited with saving millions of lives by breeding wheat, rice and other crops that brought agricultural self-sufficiency to developing countries around the world, died Saturday in Texas. He was 95…
His efforts did not go unrecognized: Borlaug became one of only five people in history to score the trifecta of humanitarian achievement, winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal — placing him in the company of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Elie Wiesel…
Ever since 19th century British economist Thomas Malthus first predicted that the world’s population would eventually outstrip its capacity for growing food, prophets of doom had envisioned catastrophe right around the corner.
Such a disaster was actually quite near beginning in the late 1930s. Between 1939 and 1942, Mexico’s wheat harvest had been halved by stem rust, a fungus whose airborne spores infect stems and leaves, causing the grain to shrivel. India, Pakistan, China and other countries were also facing the prospect of widespread starvation.
Alarmed by how food shortages might affect the war effort, the Rockefeller Foundation — largely at the instigation of Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace — established the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program in Mexico. It later became known as the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Borlaug signed on in 1944 after finishing his wartime obligations as a chemist at E.I. du Pont de Nemours…
Eventually, however, a backlash developed. In the 1980s, environmental groups began pressuring foundations and the World Bank to stop funding shipments of fertilizer to developing countries, particularly in Africa. Critics contended that the inorganic fertilizers used caused massive pollution; they argued in favor of “sustainable” agriculture using “natural” fertilizers like cow manure.
Borlaug was indignant. Using manure would require a massive expansion of the lands required for grazing the cattle and consume much of the extra grain that would be produced. At best, he said, such efforts could support no more than 4 billion people worldwide, well under the nearly 7 billion now inhabiting the planet…
(14 Sept 2009)
Reflections on the Life of Norman Borlaug
coyoteblog, World Affairs Board blog
Reason asked Norman Borlaug about the claim that organic farming is better for the environment and human health and well-being. His answer:
That’s ridiculous. This shouldn’t even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material that you have–the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues–and get them back on the soil, you couldn’t feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests.
At the present time, approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen nutrients are utilized each year. If you tried to produce this nitrogen organically, you would require an additional 5 or 6 billion head of cattle to supply the manure. How much wild land would you have to sacrifice just to produce the forage for these cows? There’s a lot of nonsense going on here…
(4 Apr 2009)
Comment:
Mr. Borlaug neglects to mention that his source of nitrogen nutrients is 3-5% of world production of natural gas, a finite fossil fuel.
From Wikipedia:
The Haber process now produces 100 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer per year, mostly in the form of anhydrous ammonia, ammonium nitrate, and urea. 3–5% of world natural gas production is consumed in the Haber process (~1–2% of the world’s annual energy supply)[1][12][13][14]. That fertilizer is responsible for sustaining one-third of the Earth’s population, as well as various deleterious environmental consequences.[2][5] Generation of hydrogen using electrolysis of water, using renewable energy, is not currently competitive cost-wise with hydrogen from fossil fuels, such as natural gas, and is responsible for 4% of current hydrogen production. Notably, the rise of this industrial process led to the “Nitrate Crisis” in Chile, when the industrials who owned the nitrate mines (most of them British) left the country — since the natural nitrate mines were no longer profitable — closing the mines and leaving a large unemployed Chilean population behind.
Nobel Prize winner, science pioneer, famine fighter Norman Borlaug, R.I.P.
Michelle Malkin, michellemalkin.com
Eco-charlatans like Van Jones claim to represent the poor and pose as saviors of the planet.
Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize-winning agricultural scientist, was a real global famine fighter and science pioneer who literally saved billions around the world. He died today at the age of 95:
Nobel Prize-winning agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug has died in Texas at age 95.
Known as the father of the “green revolution,” Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in combating world hunger.
Texas A&M University spokeswoman Kathleen Phillips said Borlaug died just before 11 p.m. Saturday at his home in Dallas.
The Nobel committee honored Borlaug in 1970 for contributions to high-yield crops and other agricultural innovations in the developing world. Many experts credit his green revolution with averting global famine during the second half of the 20th century.
(13 Sept 2009)
Comment:
Just as Borlaug is the Anti-Malthus for the Cornicopeans, he is the Anti-Environmentalist for the Conservative Right.
Norman Borlaug on the Food Crisis
Alex Tabarrok, Marginalrevolution.com
Here is Norman Borlaug, father of the green revolution, from about a decade ago but highly relevant today:
Yields can still be increased by 50-100% in much of the Indian sub-Continent, Latin America, the former USSR and Eastern Europe, and by 100-200% in much of sub-Saharan Africa, providing political stability is maintained, bureaucracies that destroys entrepreneurial initiative are reigned in, and their researchers and extension workers devote more energy to putting science and technology to work at the farm level….
I now say that the world has the technology – either available or well-advanced in the research pipeline – to feed a population of 10 billion people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology. Extremists in the environmental movement from the rich nations seem to be doing everything they can to stop scientific progress in its tracks…
(4 June 2008)
Comment:
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.
The Global Food Crisis: The End of Plenty
Joel K. Bourne Jr, National Geographic
It is the simplest, most natural of acts, akin to breathing and walking upright. We sit down at the dinner table, pick up a fork, and take a juicy bite, oblivious to the double helping of global ramifications on our plate. Our beef comes from Iowa, fed by Nebraska corn. Our grapes come from Chile, our bananas from Honduras, our olive oil from Sicily, our apple juice—not from Washington State but all the way from China. Modern society has relieved us of the burden of growing, harvesting, even preparing our daily bread, in exchange for the burden of simply paying for it. Only when prices rise do we take notice. And the consequences of our inattention are profound.
Last year the skyrocketing cost of food was a wake-up call for the planet. Between 2005 and the summer of 2008, the price of wheat and corn tripled, and the price of rice climbed fivefold, spurring food riots in nearly two dozen countries and pushing 75 million more people into poverty. But unlike previous shocks driven by short-term food shortages, this price spike came in a year when the world’s farmers reaped a record grain crop. This time, the high prices were a symptom of a larger problem tugging at the strands of our worldwide food web, one that’s not going away anytime soon. Simply put: For most of the past decade, the world has been consuming more food than it has been producing. After years of drawing down stockpiles, in 2007 the world saw global carryover stocks fall to 61 days of global consumption, the second lowest on record.
“Agricultural productivity growth is only one to two percent a year,” warned Joachim von Braun, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., at the height of the crisis. “This is too low to meet population growth and increased demand.”…
(June, 2009)
Comment:
As we reflect on the life of Norman Borlaug, a man who was viewed as the savior of billions of people, we must also reflect on the fact that his heroic efforts to end the starvation that was sweeping Southern Asia, Africa and Latin America might have simply shifted the crisis forward by 50 to 80 years. His efforts at the time were seen to be the solution to the problem of too little food in countries with too many people and too few resources. As we move into a world where the abundance of fossil fuels is in our rear-view mirror the problem of massive starvation that began to arise 40 years ago will return with greater impact and disastrous world-wide results
Norman Borlaug Dead
Matt Curry and Betsy Blaney, Huffington Post
Scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug rose from his childhood on an Iowa farm to develop a type of wheat that helped feed the world, fostering a movement that is credited with saving up to 1 billion people from starvation.
Borlaug, 95, died Saturday from complications of cancer at his Dallas home, said Kathleen Phillips, a spokesman for Texas A&M University where Borlaug was a distinguished professor.
“Norman E. Borlaug saved more lives than any man in human history,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program. “His heart was as big as his brilliant mind, but it was his passion and compassion that moved the world.”
He was known as the father of the “green revolution,” which transformed agriculture through high-yield crop varieties and other innovations, helping to more than double world food production between 1960 and 1990. Many experts credit the green revolution with averting global famine during the second half of the 20th century and saving perhaps 1 billion lives…
…But Borlaug and the Green Revolution were also criticized in later decades for promoting practices that used fertilizer and pesticides, and focusing on a few high-yield crops that benefited large landowners…
(13 Sept 2009)
Comment:
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.
