Norman Borlaug Quotes

For, behind the scenes, halfway around the world in Mexico, were two decades of aggressive research on wheat that not only enabled Mexico to become self-sufficient with respect to wheat production but also paved the way to rapid increase in its production in other countries.

- Norman Borlaug

Unless progress with agricultural yields remains very strong, the next century will experience sheer human misery that, on a numerical scale, will exceed the worst of everything that has come before.

- Norman Borlaug

Abnormal stresses and strains tend to accentuate man's animal instincts and provoke irrational and socially disruptive behavior among the less stable individuals in the maddening crowd.

- Norman Borlaug

We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life. For a decent and humane life, we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing, and effective and compassionate medical care.

- Norman Borlaug

Unless there is one master gene for yield, which I'm guessing there is not, engineering for yield will be very complex. It may happen eventually, but through the coming decades, we must assume that gene engineering will not be the answer to the world's food problems.

- Norman Borlaug

Man seems to insist on ignoring the lessons available from history.

- Norman Borlaug

Contrasting sharply, in the developing countries represented by India, Pakistan, and most of the countries in Asia and Africa, seventy to eighty percent of the population is engaged in agriculture, mostly at the subsistence level.

- Norman Borlaug

When the Nobel Peace Prize Committee designated me the recipient of the 1970 award for my contribution to the 'green revolution,' they were in effect, I believe, selecting an individual to symbolize the vital role of agriculture and food production in a world that is hungry, both for bread and for peace.

- Norman Borlaug

Man's survival, from the time of Adam and Eve until the invention of agriculture, must have been precarious because of his inability to ensure his food supply.

- Norman Borlaug

Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the 'Population Monster.'

- Norman Borlaug

The forgotten world is made up primarily of the developing nations, where most of the people, comprising more than fifty percent of the total world population, live in poverty, with hunger as a constant companion and fear of famine a continual menace.

- Norman Borlaug

Man can and must prevent the tragedy of famine in the future instead of merely trying with pious regret to salvage the human wreckage of the famine, as he has so often done in the past.

- Norman Borlaug

Cereal production in the rain-fed areas still remains relatively unaffected by the impact of the green revolution, but significant change and progress are now becoming evident in several countries.

- Norman Borlaug

We will be guilty of criminal negligence, without extenuation, if we permit future famines.

- Norman Borlaug

When wheat is ripening properly, when the wind is blowing across the field, you can hear the beards of the wheat rubbing together. They sound like the pine needles in a forest. It is a sweet, whispering music that once you hear, you never forget.

- Norman Borlaug

During the past three years spectacular progress has been made in increasing wheat, rice, and maize production in several of the most populous developing countries of southern Asia, where widespread famine appeared inevitable only five years ago.

- Norman Borlaug

In my Nobel lecture, I suggested we had until the year 2000 to tame the population monster, and then food shortages would take us under. Now I believe we have a little longer.

- Norman Borlaug

Nevertheless, the number of farmers, small as well as large, who are adopting the new seeds and new technology is increasing very rapidly, and the increase in numbers during the past three years has been phenomenal.

- Norman Borlaug

Water covers about 70 percent of the Earth's surface. Of this total, only about 2.5 percent is fresh water, and most of this is frozen in the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, in soil moisture, or in deep aquifers not readily accessible for human use.

- Norman Borlaug

Clearly, we need to rethink our attitudes about water and move away from thinking of it as nearly a free good and a God-given right.

- Norman Borlaug

In future irrigation schemes, water drainage and removal systems should be budgeted from the start of the project. Unfortunately, adding such costs to the original project often will result in a poor return on investment. Society then will have to decide how much it is willing to subsidize new irrigation development.

- Norman Borlaug

If some consumers believe that it's better from the point of view of their health to have organic food, God bless them. Let them buy it. Let them pay a bit more.

- Norman Borlaug

If people want to believe that the organic food has better nutritive value, it's up to them to make that foolish decision. But there's absolutely no research that shows that organic foods provide better nutrition.

- Norman Borlaug

As far as plants are concerned, they can't tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter.

- Norman Borlaug

It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive.

- Norman Borlaug

Africa needs roads. Roads bring know-how and fertilizer to farmers and ideas and business for commerce.

- Norman Borlaug

The breakup of the former Soviet Union has caused its grain output to plummet, but if the new republics recover economically, they could produce vast amounts of food.

- Norman Borlaug

The lack of roads in Africa greatly hinders agriculture, education, and development.

- Norman Borlaug

Plant diseases, drought, desolation, despair were recurrent catastrophes during the ages - and the ancient remedies: supplications to supernatural spirits or gods.

- Norman Borlaug

Without food, man can live at most but a few weeks; without it, all other components of social justice are meaningless.

- Norman Borlaug

Almost certainly, however, the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.

- Norman Borlaug

I am but one member of a vast team made up of many organizations, officials, thousands of scientists, and millions of farmers - mostly small and humble - who for many years have been fighting a quiet, oftentimes losing war on the food production front.

- Norman Borlaug

These places I've seen have clubbed my mind - they are so poor and depressing. I don't know what we can do to help these people, but we've got to do something.

- Norman Borlaug

The green revolution has an entirely different meaning to most people in the affluent nations of the privileged world than to those in the developing nations of the forgotten world.

- Norman Borlaug

If the world population continues to increase at the same rate, we will destroy the species.

- Norman Borlaug

Roads are essential to any type of agricultural development.

- Norman Borlaug

One of the greatest threats to mankind today is that the world may be choked by an explosively pervading but well camouflaged bureaucracy.

- Norman Borlaug

Central African farmers don't have any animal power because sleeping sickness kills all the animals - cattle, the horses, the burros and the mules. So draft animals don't exist, and farming is all by hand, and the hand tools are hoes and machetes.

- Norman Borlaug

Pricing water delivery closer to its real costs is a necessary step to improving use efficiency.

- Norman Borlaug

Yet food is something that is taken for granted by most world leaders despite the fact that more than half of the population of the world is hungry.

- Norman Borlaug

There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort.

- Norman Borlaug

Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists.

- Norman Borlaug

There are no miracles in agricultural production.

- Norman Borlaug

Therefore I feel that the aforementioned guiding principle must be modified to read: If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the same time cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.

- Norman Borlaug

It's amazing how often campaigners in rich countries think poor people don't get backache.

- Norman Borlaug

I like the back country, wildlife and all of that, but it's wrong to force poor people to live that way.

- Norman Borlaug

Supplying food to sub-Saharan African countries is made very complex because of a lack of infrastructure.

- Norman Borlaug

Civilization as it is known today could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply.

- Norman Borlaug

The destiny of world civilization depends upon providing a decent standard of living for all mankind.

- Norman Borlaug

Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.

- Norman Borlaug