The Fertilizer Encyclopedia

Norman Borlaug is a prominent plant pathologist and geneticist who helped pioneer the Green Revolution to increase crop yields worldwide. Born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, in 1914, Borlaug studied forestry at the University of Minnesota and earned his B.S. in 1937. He then undertook graduate work there in plant pathology, earning his M.S. in 1939 and his Ph.D. in 1942. After a year of teaching at the university, he left to accept a job as a biochemist for the E. I. duPont de Nemours Company.

The turning point in Borlaug's career came in 1944, when he became a member of a team of scientists who founded the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico. Under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation, the center's goal was to introduce the elements of the modern agricultural revolution into Mexican agriculture. In addition to mechanization, improved irrigation, and the use of new chemical fertilizers, Borlaug and his colleagues at the center emphasized the development of new varieties and hybrids of wheat. Their efforts were directed at finding a variety of wheat for Mexican farmers that was disease resistant, responsive to fertilizers, and produced increased crop yields. Their research was successful, and the so-called Green Revolution-the great expansion in food production worldwide-was underway. Borlaug and most agricultural scientists believed the new high-yielding varieties of rice, corn, wheat, and other cereal crops, which were the staple foods in developing countries, would end hunger there and enable the governments of those countries to feed their rapidly growing populations.

During the decades after World War II, Borlaug lent his expertise to the governments of Morocco, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other developing nations. He also continued his work in Mexico and became associate director of the Rockefeller Foundation Inter-American Food Program in 1964. In 1970 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work in c