[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 138 (Tuesday, September 29, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2383-E2384]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 RECOGNIZES THE EFFORTS OF AGRONOMIST AND NOBEL LAUREATE NORMAN BORLAUG

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROSA L. DeLAURO

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 29, 2009

  Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker: I rise to recognize and pay my respects 
to the late Norman Borlaug, who passed away earlier this month.

[[Page E2384]]

  The father of the Green Revolution, and one of only six people in 
history to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of 
Freedom, and the Congressional Medal of Honor, Dr. Borlaug may just be 
the most underappreciated genius in human history. In the annals of our 
species' time on Earth, he stands like a Colossus. It is no 
exaggeration to say--indeed it is said often--that Dr. Borlaug saved 
more lives than anyone else who has ever lived, and that he quite 
literally changed the fate of our world.
  Born in 1914 in Saude, Iowa, Norman Borlaug spent his formative years 
working on the family farm, leaving, Borlaug said later in life, only 
because of some sage advice offered by his grandfather--``You're wiser 
to fill your head now if you want to fill your belly later on.'' With 
the help of a gift for wrestling--and Franklin Roosevelt's National 
Youth Administration--Borlaug enrolled in the University of Minnesota 
in 1933, supplementing his meager resources with stints in the Civilian 
Conservation Corps and the United States Forestry Service. He graduated 
in 1937 with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry, following it up with a 
Masters of Science in 1940 and a Doctorate in plant pathology and 
genetics in 1942.
  After serving the World War II effort as a microbiologist at DuPont, 
Borlaug moved to Mexico in 1944 to take part in a Rockefeller 
Foundation project aimed at boosting wheat production. There, the true 
work of his life began.
  At the time, Mexican farmers were able to raise less than half of the 
wheat they needed to feed their population, mainly due to a 
debilitating fungus known as rust. For the next 13 years, Borlaug 
experimented with and cross-bred strains of wheat from all over the 
world to develop a grain that was rust-resistant. When that success was 
finally achieved, other problems emerged. The new blend of wheat, while 
resistant to rust and many other diseases, was top-heavy and would 
break easily. So Borlaug looked to shorter Japanese dwarf strains, and 
the Green Revolution began in earnest.
  By 1956, thanks to Dr. Borlaug's efforts, Mexico grew two to three 
times more wheat than before, and was self-sufficient in wheat. From 
there, spurred on by the Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations, 
Borlaug brought his extraordinary insights to the rest of the globe. In 
India and Pakistan, North Africa and Southeast Asia, the Middle East 
and the Philippines, where scientists followed Borlaug's pioneering 
vision to create a new strand of rice, Borlaug's hard work and amazing 
insights transformed agriculture and allowed for incredible new yields 
all over a hungry world.
  In 1970, Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for the 
transformation he had achieved. In an age that was greatly concerned 
about the dire consequences of exploding population, Borlaug utilized 
science, innovation, and his ``Iowa-stubborn tenacity'' to lead the 
whole world forward. He remains the only agricultural scientist to have 
ever won the Nobel Prize--Indeed, in part to correct this oversight, 
Borlaug later helped to found the World Food Prize, to encourage 
agronomists of later generations to follow in his footsteps.
  Borlaug was not only a pioneering scientist but a pioneering 
humanitarian. I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Borlaug several 
times over the past few years, and he was a consistent and forceful 
advocate on global food issues. He dedicated his days not only to 
feeding hungry people and helping them achieve self-sufficiency, but to 
improving their lives in any way he could. A professor at Texas A&M 
University for many years, Borlaug also served as an important advisor 
to governments around the world and a compelling advocate for the many 
virtues of agricultural science. To say nothing of his continuing 
stints as Boy Scout Troopmaster and Mexico's first Little League 
Baseball coach, and of his life as a husband and father.
  After his passing on September 13, 2009, Borlaug's children asked 
that he be remembered as ``a model for making a difference in the lives 
of others and to bring about efforts to end human misery for all 
mankind.'' And so he was, and so he shall. The world has lost one of 
its great men in Norman Borlaug, and we are all the poorer for it. 
Nonetheless, his remarkable contributions to our people and our planet 
will last longer than any of us.

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