[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 17, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1539-E1541]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   STATEMENT BY DR. NORMAN E. BORLAUG

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LATHAM

                                of iowa

                        HON. LEONARD L. BOSWELL

                                of iowa

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 17, 2007

  Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, Mr. Boswell and I would like to submit the 
following statement from Dr. Norman E. Borlaug for the Congressional 
Record.

Norman E. Borlaug: Statement on the occasion of the Congressional Gold 
          Medal Ceremony, United States Capitol, July 17, 2007

       It is a great honor to be awarded the Congressional Gold 
     Medal, in recognition of my work to feed a hungry world. I 
     thank members of Congress for giving me an opportunity to 
     comment on the challenges and complexities of feeding a world 
     of 10 billion people who I expect will be living on the 
     planet Earth sometime this century.
       When I was born--in 1914--there were only 1.6 billion 
     people on Earth. Today, we are 6.5 billion and growing by 80 
     million per year. The task of feeding this growing population 
     has been made more complex, since agriculture is now being 
     asked not only to produce food, feed and fiber, but also raw 
     materials for bio-fuels. Thus, there is no room for 
     complacency for those of us working on the food front.
       I am now in my 63rd year of continuous involvement in 
     agricultural research and production in low-income, food-
     deficit developing countries. I have worked with many 
     scientists, political leaders, and farmers to transform food 
     production systems. Any achievements I have made have been 
     possible through my participation in this army of hunger 
     fighters. There are too many to name, but you know who you 
     are. I thank you for your dedication and assistance all of 
     these years. I also thank my family, and my late wife 
     Margaret, for the understanding and unselfish support you 
     have given me.
       The Green Revolution was a great historic success. In 1960, 
     perhaps 60 percent of the world's people felt hunger during 
     some portion of the year. By the year 2000, the proportion of 
     hungry in the world had dropped to 14 percent of the total 
     population. Still, this figure translated to 850 million men, 
     women and children who lacked sufficient calories and protein 
     to grow strong and healthy bodies. Thus, despite the 
     successes of the Green Revolution, the battle to ensure food 
     security for hundreds of millions of miserably poor people is 
     far from won.


                          The Green Revolution

       The breakthroughs in wheat and rice production in Asia in 
     the mid-1960s, which came to be known as the Green 
     Revolution, symbolized the beginning of a process of using 
     agricultural science to develop modem techniques for the 
     Third World. It began in Mexico with the ``quiet'' wheat 
     revolution in the late 1950s. During the 1960s and 1970s, 
     India, Pakistan, and the Philippines received world 
     attention for their agricultural progress. In the 1980s 
     and 1990s, China, home to one fifth of the world's people, 
     has been the greatest success story. China today is the 
     world's biggest food producer and its crop yields are 
     approaching those of the United States with every 
     successive year. However, it is almost certain, that China 
     and India--home to one third of the world's people--will 
     become the largest agricultural importers in the coming 
     decades, as their economies shift from being agrarian to 
     industrial.
       Critics of modem agricultural technology invariably turn a 
     blind eye on what the world would have been like without the 
     technological advances that have occurred, largely during the 
     past 50 years. For those whose main concern is protecting the 
     ``environment,'' let's look at the positive impact that the 
     application of science-based technology has had on land use. 
     If the global cereal yields of 1950 still prevailed in 2000 
     we would have needed nearly 1.2 billion ha of additional land 
     of the same quality--instead of the 660 million ha that was 
     used--to achieve the global harvest of that year. Obviously, 
     such a surplus of land was not available, and certainly not 
     in populous Asia, where the population had increased from 1.2 
     to 3.8 billion over this period. Moreover, if more 
     environmentally fragile land had been brought into 
     agricultural production, the impact on soil erosion, loss of 
     forests and grasslands, biodiversity and extinction of 
     wildlife species would have been enormous and disastrous.
       At lest in the foreseeable future, plants--and especially 
     the cereals--will continue to supply much of our increased 
     food demand, both for direct human consumption and as 
     livestock feed to satisfy the rapidly growing demand for meat 
     in the newly industrializing countries. It is likely that an 
     additional 1 billion metric tons of grain will be needed 
     annually by 2025, just to feed the world, let alone fuel its 
     vehicles. Most of this increase must come from lands already 
     in production through yield improvements. Fortunately, such 
     productivity improvements in crop management can be made all 
     along the line--in plant breeding, crop management, tillage, 
     water use, fertilization, weed and pest control, and 
     harvesting.


                  Africa's Food Production Challenges

       More than any other region of the world, African food 
     production is in crisis. High rates of population growth and 
     little application of improved production technology during 
     the last two decades resulted in declining per capita food 
     production, escalating food deficits, deteriorating 
     nutritional levels, especially among the rural poor, and 
     devastating environmental degradation. While there are more 
     signs since 2000 that smallholder food production is 
     beginning to turn around, this recovery is still very 
     fragile.
       Sub-Saharan Africa's extreme poverty, poor soils, uncertain 
     rainfall, increasing population pressures, changing ownership 
     patterns for land and cattle, political and social turmoil, 
     shortages of trained agriculturalists, and weaknesses in 
     research and technology delivery systems all make the task of 
     agricultural development more difficult. But we should also 
     realize that to a considerable extent, the present food 
     crisis is the result of the long-time neglect of agriculture 
     by political leaders. Even though agriculture 
     provides livelihoods to 70-85 percent of the people in 
     most countries, agricultural and rural development has 
     been given low priority. Investments in food distribution 
     and marketing systems and in agricultural research and 
     education are woefully inadequate. Furthermore, many 
     governments pursued and continue to pursue a policy of 
     providing cheap food for the politically volatile urban 
     dwellers at the expense of production incentives for 
     farmers.
       In 1986 I became involved in food crop technology transfer 
     projects in sub-Saharan Africa, sponsored by the Nippon 
     Foundation and its Chairman, the late Ryoichi Sasakawa, and 
     enthusiastically supported by former U.S. President Jimmy 
     Carter. Our joint program is known as Sasakawa-Global 2000, 
     and has operated in 14 sub-Saharan African countries the past 
     20 years. We have assisted several million small-scale 
     farmers to grow extension demonstration plots for basic food 
     crops: maize, rice, sorghum, millet, wheat, cassava, and 
     grain legumes.
       The recommended production technologies come from national 
     and international agricultural research organizations, and 
     include: (1) the use of the best available commercial 
     varieties or hybrids (2) proper land preparation and seeding 
     to achieve good stand establishment, (3) proper application 
     of the appropriate fertilizers and, when needed, crop 
     protection chemicals, (4) timely weed control, and (5) 
     moisture conservation and/or better water use if under 
     irrigation. We also work with participating farm families to 
     improve on-farm storage of agricultural production, both to 
     reduce grain losses due to spoilage and infestation and to 
     allow farmers to hold stocks longer to exploit periods when 
     prices in the marketplace are more favorable. Virtually 
     without exception, farmers obtain grain yields that are two 
     to three times higher on their demonstration plots than has 
     been traditionally the case. Farmers' enthusiasm is high and 
     political leaders are taking much interest in the program.
       Despite the formidable challenges in Africa, the elements 
     that worked in Latin America and Asia will also work there. 
     With more effective seed, fertilizer supply and marketing 
     systems, hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers in 
     Africa can make great strides in improving the nutritional 
     and economic well being of their populations. The biggest 
     bottleneck that must be overcome is lack of infrastructure, 
     especially roads and transport, but also potable water and 
     electricity. In particular, improved transport systems would 
     greatly accelerate agricultural production, break down tribal 
     animosities, and help establish rural schools and clinics in 
     areas where teachers and health practitioners are heretofore 
     unwilling to venture.


                        Crop Research Challenges

       Crop productivity depends both on the yield potential of 
     the varieties and the crop management employed to enhance 
     input and output efficiency. Agricultural researchers and 
     farmers worldwide face the challenge during the next 25 years 
     of developing and applying technology that can increase the 
     global cereal yields by 50-75 percent, and to do so in ways 
     that are economically and environmentally sustainable. Much 
     of the yield

[[Page E1540]]

     gains will come from applying technology ``already on the 
     shelf' but yet to be fully utilized. But there will also be 
     new research breakthroughs, especially in plant breeding to 
     improve yield stability and, hopefully, maximum genetic yield 
     potential.
       While we must continue to push the frontiers of science 
     forward, we also must be mindful of the need to protect the 
     gains already made. Agriculture is a continuing struggle 
     against mutating pathogens and insects. A clear example is 
     the new race of stem rust that has emerged in East Africa, 
     which is capable of devastating most of the world's 
     commercial bread wheat varieties. Ironically, I began my 
     career in agricultural science combating stem rust some 60 
     years ago and I am now in the twilight of my life, once again 
     facing my old nemesis. There hasn't been a major stem rust 
     epidemic for more than 50 years, since the virulent race 
     called 15B devastated much of the North America wheat crop 
     during 1950-54. Out of that crisis came new forms of 
     international cooperation in plant breeding, which led to 
     accelerated development around the world of high-yielding, 
     disease-resistant, broadly adapted wheat varieties. However, 
     in the ensuing years, complacency, increasing barriers to 
     international exchange of plant breeding materials, declining 
     budgets, staff retirements and discontinuity in training 
     programs, has resulted in a much weakened system. This has 
     been evident in the slow international response to a very 
     serious new stem rust race, called Ug99, first spotted in 
     Uganda and Kenya in the late 1990s. Ug99 has now escaped from 
     Africa and begun its migration to North Africa and the Middle 
     East. It won't be long before it reaches South Asia and later 
     China, North America and the rest of the wheat-growing world. 
     Wheat scientists are now scrambling to control this disease 
     before it gains a foothold and causes catastrophic losses to 
     the livelihoods of several hundred million wheat farmers and 
     widespread global wheat shortages that will affect prices and 
     the welfare of several billion consumers. Since 2005, 
     excellent collaboration has been forthcoming from the USDA, 
     key land grant universities, and USAID. A far-reaching 
     research program is being considered by a major U.S. 
     foundation located in Seattle that if approved could solidify 
     and accelerate the progress to date. As part of this research 
     effort we also hope to identify why rice, alone among the 
     cereals, is immune to the rust fungi, and then use 
     biotechnology to transfer this genetic immunity from rice to 
     wheat and other cereals. If we are successful in this quest, 
     the scourge of rust, mentioned in the bible, could finally be 
     banished from the Earth.


                 What Can We Expect from Biotechnology?

       During the 20th Century, conventional plant breeding has 
     produced--and continues to produce--modern crop varieties and 
     hybrids that have contributed immensely to grain yield 
     potential, disease and insect resistance, stability of 
     harvests and farm incomes, while sparing vast tracts of land 
     for other uses, such as wildlife habitats, forests, and 
     outdoor recreation.
       The majority of agricultural scientists including myself 
     anticipate great benefits from biotechnology in the coming 
     decades to help meet our future needs for food, feed, fiber, 
     and bio-fuels. Promising work, now utilizing the powerful new 
     tools of biotechnology, is also under way to develop greater 
     tolerance of climatic extremes, such as drought, heat, and 
     cold. Such research is likely to become more important in the 
     future as the world experiences the effects of climate 
     change. We must also persist in scientific efforts to raise 
     maximum genetic yield potential to increase food production 
     on lands currently in use while protecting against serious 
     negative environmental impacts.
       Seventy percent of global water withdrawals are used for 
     irrigating agricultural lands, which account for 17 percent 
     of total cultivated land yet contribute 40 percent of our 
     global food harvest. Expanding the area under irrigation is 
     critical to meeting future food demand. However, competing 
     urban demands for water will require much great efficiencies 
     in agricultural water use. Through biotechnology we will be 
     able to achieve ``more crop per drop'' by designing plants 
     with reduced water requirements and adoption of improved 
     crop/water management systems.
       Developing country governments need to be prepared to work 
     with--and benefit from--the new breakthroughs in 
     biotechnology. Regulatory frameworks are needed to guide the 
     testing and use of genetically modified crops, which protect 
     public welfare and the environment against undue risk. They 
     must be cost effective to implement yet not be so restrictive 
     that science cannot advance.
       Since the private sector patents its life science 
     inventions, agricultural policy makers must be vigilant in 
     guarding against too much concentration of ownership and also 
     be concerned about equity of access issues, especially for 
     poor farmers. These are legitimate matters for debate by 
     national, regional and global governmental organizations.
       Even with private sector leadership in biotechnology 
     research I believe that governments should also fund 
     significant public research programs. This is not only 
     important as a complement and balance to private sector 
     proprietary research, but is also needed to ensure the proper 
     training of new generations of scientists, both for private 
     and public sector research institutions.
       U.S. agriculture is being asked to produce more food, feed, 
     fiber and now biofuels, while protecting the environment and 
     not greatly increasing land use. Science is ready for the 
     task, but science will not succeed without wise and adequate 
     support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and 
     its congressional committees. Traditional programs of 
     research and education at USDA and in the land grant 
     universities must continue. Congress must also invest more 
     generously in fundamental research to learn more about the 
     cellular and molecular events that determine how plants and 
     animals reproduce, grow and fight off stresses such as 
     drought, cold and disease. Most of these major innovations 
     will start first with acquiring deeper fundamental 
     understanding.
       Getting the most from fundamental research will require 
     changes in the culture of decision making in public 
     agricultural institutions. Leading scientists must be 
     involved in deciding which programs have scientific merit and 
     in setting realistic scientific priorities. There should be a 
     council, like those of the National Institutes of Health, 
     where scientists and stakeholders can pool their wisdom in 
     recommending research priorities. Building such changes into 
     the current farm bill is a high priority.


                 Educating Urbanites about Agriculture

       The current backlash against agricultural science and 
     technology evident in some industrialized countries is hard 
     for me to comprehend. How quickly humankind becomes detached 
     from the soil and agricultural production! Less than 4 
     percent of the population in the industrialized countries 
     (less than 2 percent in the USA) is directly engaged in 
     agriculture. With low-cost food supplies and urban bias, 
     is it any wonder that consumers don't understand the 
     complexities of re-producing the world food supply each 
     year in its entirely, and expanding it further for the 
     nearly 80 million new mouths that are born into this world 
     annually? I believe we can help address this ``educational 
     gap'' by making it compulsory in secondary schools and 
     universities for students to take courses on agriculture, 
     biology, and science and technology policy.
       One exciting high school program, in which I am personally 
     involved, is the World Food Prize Youth Institute program 
     originated by Des Moines philanthropist Juan Ruan and led by 
     the World Food Prize Foundation. Each year, more than a 100 
     high school students, mainly from Iowa but now expanding to 
     other states and countries, convene at the George Washington 
     Carver auditorium at Pioneer Hybrid Company headquarters in 
     Johnston, Iowa, with teachers and parents, to present their 
     well-researched essays on about how to increase the quantity, 
     quality, and availability of food around the world. They make 
     these presentations in front of past and present World Food 
     Prize laureates and other experts, and lively discussions 
     ensue. Each year, a select few graduating seniors win travel 
     fellowships to go to a developing country where they live and 
     work at an agricultural research institute, and learn first 
     hand about hunger and poverty, and the role that science and 
     technology can play to alleviate these calamities. It is 
     especially gratifying to see the growth and development of 
     these young, mostly female, summer interns. It literally is a 
     life-changing experience for them, and it shows in their 
     performance at university and in career selections. More 
     programs like this are needed, so that future generations of 
     Americans have a better sense about the complexities and 
     challenges of feeding a growing world.


                    Agriculture and the Environment

       As the pace of technological change has accelerated the 
     past 50 years, the fear of science has grown. Certainly, the 
     breaking of the atom and the prospects of a nuclear holocaust 
     added to people's fear, and drove a bigger wedge between the 
     scientist and the layman. Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, 
     published in 1962, which reported that poisons were 
     everywhere, also struck a very sensitive nerve. Of course, 
     this perception was not totally unfounded. By the mid 20th 
     century air and water quality had been seriously damaged 
     through wasteful industrial production systems that pushed 
     effluents often literally into ``our own backyards.''
       We all owe a debt of gratitude to environmental movement in 
     the industrialized nations, which has led to legislation over 
     the past 40 years to improve air and water quality, protect 
     wildlife, control the disposal of toxic wastes, protect the 
     soils, and reduce the loss of biodiversity. However, these 
     positive environmental trends are not found in the developing 
     countries, where environmental degradation, especially in 
     Africa, threatens ecological stability if not reversed.
       There is often a deadlock between agriculturalists and 
     environmentalists over what constitutes ``sustainable 
     agriculture'' in the Third World. This debate has confused--
     if not paralyzed--many in the international donor community 
     who, afraid of antagonizing powerful environmental 
     lobbying groups, have turned away from supporting 
     sciencebased agricultural modernization projects still 
     needed in much of smallholder Asia, subSaharan Africa, and 
     Latin America. This deadlock must be broken.

[[Page E1541]]

       We cannot lose sight of the enormous job before us to feed 
     10 billion people, 90 percent of whom will begin life in a 
     developing country, and many in poverty. Only through dynamic 
     agricultural development will there be any hope to alleviate 
     poverty and improve human health and productivity, and 
     reducing political instability.


                            Closing Comments

       Thirty seven years ago, in my acceptance speech for the 
     Nobel Peace Prize, I said that the Green Revolution had won a 
     temporary success in man's war against hunger, which if fully 
     implemented, could provide sufficient food for humankind 
     through the end of the 20th century. But I warned that unless 
     the frightening power of human reproduction was curbed, the 
     success of the Green Revolution would only be ephemeral.
       It took some 10,000 years to expand food production to the 
     current level of about 5 billion tons per year. By 2050, we 
     will likely need to nearly double current production again. 
     This cannot be done unless farmers across the world have 
     access to high-yielding crop production methods as well as 
     new biotechnological breakthroughs that can increase the crop 
     yields, dependability, and nutritional quality. Indeed, it is 
     higher farm incomes that will permit small-scale farmers in 
     the Third World to make desperately needed investments to 
     protect their natural resources. As Kenyan archeologist 
     Richard Leakey likes to reminds us, ``you have to be well-fed 
     to be a conservationist.'' We have to bring common sense into 
     the debate on agricultural science and technology and the 
     sooner the better!
       The United States is the greatest agricultural success 
     story of the 20th Century. Through science and technology and 
     farmer ingenuity, American agriculture has achieved levels of 
     productivity second to none. We also have a great tradition, 
     especially in earlier decades, of helping low-income; food-
     deficit nations to get their own agricultural systems moving. 
     Our private agri-businesses have invested heavily in the 
     development of productivity-enhancing technology, not only to 
     the benefit of this country but also around the world. 
     American public institutions--the land-grant universities and 
     colleges, the USDA, and the U.S. Department of State--have 
     play key roles in the transformation of subsistence 
     agriculture, especially in Asia and Latin America. This has 
     been good for the American people and the world. Lest we 
     forget, world peace will not be built on empty stomachs or 
     human misery.
       I would be remiss if I did not thank the Administration for 
     establishing the USDA Borlaug Fellows program in 2004, in my 
     honor, at the time of my 90th birthday. This is an 
     international program that actively engages universities like 
     my own Texas A&M University, my alma mater, the University of 
     Minnesota, and many other of our fine land grant universities 
     and colleges. The Borlaug fellows program also has links to 
     the international agricultural research centers located 
     abroad and to private agro-industry.
       The aim is to provide relatively young scientists from 
     developing countries with opportunities to travel to the USA 
     to gain practical experience and upgrade their technical 
     skills at advanced agricultural laboratories. So far, USDA 
     has been able, with the assistance of USAID, to piece 
     together funding for about 150 Borlaug fellows to come to the 
     United States each year. With more permanent funding, along 
     the lines of the Fulbright program, USDA and the partner 
     universities could implement a more substantial range of 
     learning and personal development opportunities for young 
     scientists and agricultural leaders from developing 
     countries. This would be good for the individual recipients, 
     their sponsoring institutions and countries, and also, I 
     believe, for America. Texas A&M University and Ohio State 
     University have been working through the National Association 
     of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC) to 
     prepare a more substantial proposal for consideration by 
     Congress.
       My plea today to the members of Congress and to the 
     Administration is to re-commit the United States to more 
     dynamic and generous programs of official development 
     assistance in agriculture for Third World nations, as was 
     done in the 1960s and 1970s. Evershrinking foreign aid 
     budgets in support of smallholder agriculture, and especially 
     to multilateral research and development organizations such 
     as the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center 
     (CIMMYT) where I have worked for 40 years, as well as its 
     sister research institutes under the Consultative Group for 
     International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), are not in our 
     nation's best interest, nor do they represent our finest 
     traditions.
       As you chart the course of this great nation for the future 
     benefit of our children, grandchildren, and great-
     grandchildren, I ask you to think more boldly and humanely 
     about the Third World and develop a new version of the 
     Marshall plan, this time not to rescue a war-torn Europe, but 
     now to help the nearly one billion, mostly rural poor people 
     still trapped in hunger and misery. It is within America's 
     technical and financial power to help end this human tragedy 
     and injustice, if we set our hearts and minds to the task.

                          ____________________