When you think of a hero. You think brave, strong, and invincible. But these characteristics are for heroes that are compacted in the pages of Marvel Books. My hero had the determination to create disease-resistant wheat and high yield crops that fed the hungry around world.
Doctor Norman Borlaug was the man who did this. But who was he? And, what did he do?
When you think of major world issues, many come to mind, poverty, disasters earthquake in Haiti, famine and starvation. Starvation: is the act or process to suffer or die from extreme lack of food. This would be the definition of starvation if you were to look in a dictionary. Starvation is caused by the lack of food because of dead or dying crops. This process cannot be stopped. This was common in many poor countries where life was very tough and food was very scarce. The quality and quantity of the harvest determined if people ate or earned a living. If the amount of harvest decreased, it was a negative outcome for both the consumer and the producer. Both would get little amount of food which could lead to famine or worse, death. This was common in the poor parts of the world.
Then, Norman Borlaug stepped into the picture.
Norman Borlaug was no celebrity, he was a humble and simple man that avoided fame but had the raw determination and will power to create solutions that prevented hunger, famine and misery around the world.
Norman Borlaug's life career was into agriculture science. From 1942 to 1944 he was an employee at Du Point in Delaware. After leaving Du Point he was recruited by George Harrar for his talents to be used in wheat research in Mexico. Along with other Americans who shared similar talents that Mr.Harrar saw in Mr. Borlaug. Norman Borlaug had remained with this research team for 16 years. But during this time Norman Borlaug had bred a series of successfully high yield, disease-resistant, semi-dwarf wheat. During his first ten year's breading this wheat. His group made 6,000 indivual crossings of wheat. Soon Norman Borlaug's work paid off. He had welcomed the Green Revolution which Norman Borlaug was known for. To Mexico and now Africa, India and the Philippine's. All of these he doubled the amount of rice and made their cost move up on export's of this grain and raised their economy. In March 2005, Doctor Borlaug stated "we will have to double the world food supply by 2050."
Other than his discovery he did many other thing's to encourage the youth such as making a World Food Prize is one for example. Which encouraged the youth to make a change in the world just like he did. Then there were his award's that he was represented with. On July 17, 2007 he was awarded a bronze medal for the many lives he saved. Given personally by George W. Bush. He was also awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Which he say's "Accordingly, I shall not dwell upon the personal honor, for I have not done so even within myself. Instead, I want to devote my remarks to recognize the actual and potential contributions of agricultural production to prosperity and peace among the nations and peoples of the world." If you were to listen to this over three minute long speech you would see he wasn't all into the personal fame he would be recognized with. He wanted his ideas to promote prosperity and peace of a better earth.
Now you may see what I see in this man. It is said that Dr. Borlaug has "saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived." He had put so much work into something he was devoted to that ended up saving many lives.
