Norman Borlaug

He lived a long life and was diagnosed with lymphoma during his later years. He died at the age of 95 in 2009.

He was the eldest child of Henry Oliver and Clara Borlaug; he had three younger sisters.

As a kid he went to a one-teacher, one-room rural school in Howard County. He worked at his family’s 106 acre farm as a youngster raising cattle, hunting, and growing food crops like corn and oats.

He enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 1933 and was accepted into the General College. He eventually transferred to the College of Agriculture’s forestry program. He received his Bachelor of Science in forestry in 1937.

He studied plant pathology under Elvin Stakman and received a Master of Science degree in 1940 and Ph. D in plant pathology and genetics in 1942

He was appointed as a microbiologist at DuPont in Wilmington from 1942 to 1944. He was asked to develop glue that could withstand warm salt water which he developed within weeks with the help of his colleagues.

His job at DuPont was very lucrative and high paying yet when he learnt that the Mexican government was keen on establishing Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program, he went to Mexico in 1944 to head this new program as a geneticist and plant pathologist.

Initially he faced many difficulties in Mexico due to the lack of availability of scientific equipment and trained staff. Moreover, the farmers in Mexico were wary of the new program. He spent the first ten years developing disease resistant strains of wheat.

He discovered that pure line plant varieties are less disease resistant and thus developed multiline varieties by crossing several pure lines each with different genes for disease resistance. In 1953, he further developed this technique.

He introduced a very useful feature, known as dwarfing, in his hybrids,which produces thicker and shorter stems in wheat grass which prevents it from collapsing under the weight of its grains.

One of the key personalities who lead the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug is known as the “Father of the Green Revolution”. By combining the use of disease resistant, high yielding seeds with modern agricultural techniques, many countries have been able to increase their food grain production manifold.