Lester R. Brown

Brown was born on 28th March, 1934, in Bridgetown in New Jersey. During his growing years, he witnessed World War II and would borrow old newspapers to read about the war.

Being a voracious reader, he would read everything including biographies of famous personalities. Both his parents were farmers, and he was the first one in the family to earn a college degree.

In his early years, he worked in the farm, and being an entrepreneur by nature, encouraged his younger brother Carl to start new businesses. By year 1951, their tomato business became one of the largest in New Jersey.

He pursued a course in agricultural science from ‘Rutgers University’ and in 1955 successfully obtained a degree. Later in the same year, he was part of the ‘International Farm Youth Exchange Program’, and spent six months in rural India, where he first encountered the issue of population and food.

He decided to join ‘US Department of Agriculture’s ‘Foreign Agricultural Services’, but he needed a degree of agricultural economics. He earned the degree from ‘University of Maryland’ within a short span of nine months.

Brown joined FAS, in 1959, as an international agricultural analyst in the Asia branch. A year later, he took a leave of nine months to obtain a Master’s degree in Public Administration from ‘Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration’.

In the year 1963, he published his most celebrated work ‘Man, Land and Food’. It was the most comprehensive study of population, land resources and food till the end of century.

The story featured in ‘U.S. News & World Report’ and grabbed the attention of Orville Freeman, then Secretary of Agriculture who invited him to be part of his staff and asked him to find a solution to the problem he helped bring to limelight.

In his tenure, as a resident specialist of global issues, he advised the department on various issues including agricultural policies to be adopted overseas.

In the year 1960, Brown left the government job and established the Overseas Development Council.

Brown has co-authored several books concerning environment issues and food scarcity. In his role as a pioneering environmentalist he has founded ‘Earth Policy Institute’ which was established with the goal of promoting sustainable environment.