[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 156 (Tuesday, October 16, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2143]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO DR. NORMAN E. BORLAUG

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LATHAM

                                of iowa

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 16, 2007

  Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, up until July of this year, in all the 
history of America, there are only four individuals who ever received 
the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the 
Congressional Gold Medal, America's highest civilian honor. They are 
Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel, and Dr. Martin Luther 
King, Jr.
  On July 17, President George W. Bush joined with the bipartisan 
Congressional leadership in presenting the Congressional Gold Medal to 
a fifth person, a native of Iowa, born in my congressional district, 
Dr. Norman E. Borlaug. Dr. Borlaug's name is not as well known as those 
other four vaunted individuals, but the achievements of this humble and 
self-effacing man are just as magnificent. It was one of the proudest 
moments of my service in Congress to be on the dais with the President 
and Dr. Borlaug and to hear him described as: the Father of the Green 
Revolution; the man who saved a billion people from starvation: and the 
man who, ``has saved more lives than any other person who has ever 
lived.''
  If there is one person who is the symbol of our struggle to diminish 
hunger in the world it is Dr. Borlaug. He is a hero on almost every 
continent from Mexico, where he first developed his ``Miracle Wheat'' 
that could triple the yield of the plant; to India and Pakistan where 
his new approach to agriculture staved off famine and helped those two 
countries become self-sufficient in wheat; to the Middle East and East 
Asia where his revolutionary agricultural innovations produced 
unprecedented surpluses in both wheat and rice; and finally to Africa, 
where his efforts continue to this day as he heads the Sasakawa Global 
2000 effort to uplift food deficit countries there.
  Dr. Borlaug is in Iowa today attending the first ever Iowa Hunger 
Summit, which is organized by the World Food Prize Foundation and which 
is drawing hundreds and hundreds of participants from across Iowa and 
across America for a day-long focus on countering global food 
insecurity. I was pleased to learn that members of the Alliance Against 
Hunger and Bread for the World are traveling to Iowa from many States 
to take part in this exciting and innovative program. It is highly 
appropriate that Dr. Borlaug will be surrounded by the bipartisan 
political leadership of the State of Iowa for the past 40 years in the 
person of Governor Chet Culver and former governors Bob Ray, Terry 
Branstad and Tom Vilsack.
  While we cannot be there to join with them in this important work, we 
can send messages of support such as this so that all who are attending 
the Hunger Summit can know that we in the Congress are also present in 
spirit, indeed a bipartisan spirit, which comes from the admiration 
Republicans and Democrats share of Dr. Borlaug and the shared concern 
we have for people who do not have enough to eat.

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