Posted on 09/14/2009 4:00:34 AM PDT by MplsSteve
In the final days of a nearly three-year battle with lymphoma, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug was asked by his daughter if he needed anything.
The 95-year-old responded: "Africa. Africa. I have not finished my mission in Africa," his daughter, Jeanie Borlaug Laube, said Sunday from Dallas.
Norman Borlaug, an Iowa farmboy who graduated from the University of Minnesota, believed food was a moral right. He traveled the world as a scientist and humanitarian, becoming the Green Revolution's "Apostle of Wheat" for the high-yield grain he perfected.
Borlaug, who most recently had been a distinguished professor at Texas A&M University, died Saturday at his Dallas home with his two children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren at his side. He was alert to the end, his daughter said.
Thanks to Borlaug, families in Asia, Latin America and Africa have more to eat. When the National Academy of Sciences awarded him its Public Welfare Medal in 2002, academy President Bruce Alberts said, "Some credit him with saving more human lives than any other person in history.''
For all but the final two years of his life, Borlaug traveled so extensively that his family saw him only three a times a year, said his son, William Gibson Borlaug. His father, who thought everyone had a right to shelter, a full stomach and an education, "was a great person and did an awful lot of good in the world," the son said.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
This article is a little long but it's a good read. As you get further into the article, you can see that Borlaug too tangled with environmentalists and referred to them as "well-fed elitists."
All I can say is "Job well done, Mr. Borlaug".
Comments or opinions - anyone?
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FTA: Critics also accused Borlaug of contributing to overpopulation. With more to eat, more people would survive through their reproductive years, they said, and eventually the population would catch up with yield gains, causing a resurgence in hunger.
Right before your Borlaug response: Idiotic elitists.
More people can work more fields and plant more wheat. Problem solved.
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