Monday, September 14, 2009

Remembering Someone Who Fought World Hunger...

The stampede over the weekend in Karachi, Pakistan that killed at least 14 women and children illustrated in the most tragic way possible that hunger still has yet to be beaten.  Free flour was being handed out, presumably in a disorganized way and in a narrow, confined space.  However it was the unexpected numbers of women and children that showed up to receive the flour that caught the distributers by surprise. Last week, we lost Norman Borlaug, a scientist who made it his life's work to improve agricultural output and was a pioneer of the Green Revolution.  In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Peace price for his advances in plant breeding that increased yields throughout Latin-America and Asia, where he was single-handedly credited for saving millions of lives from starvation.  He remained steadfast in his position that population growth was the true instigator of hunger, and also faced critics arguing that the Green Revolution was an unsustainable, ecologically unsound practice.  Whatever may be your opinion on the matter, here is a tip of the hat to a man that undoubtable made an impact on all of us - as Gary H. Toenniessen, director of agricultural programs for the Rockefeller Foundation states in a New York Times article, half the the world's population every day consumes grain descended from one of the high-yield varieties developed by Dr. Borlaug and his colleagues of the Green Revolution.

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