| Citation | Norman Ernest Borlaug was born in 1914 in Cresco, Iowa, USA, of Norwegian farming parents. After a B.S. Degree in Forestry, M.S. and Ph.D. Degrees in Plant Pathology, University of Minnesota, he became in 1944 Research Scientist for wheat improvement in the Cooperative Mexican Agricultural Programme of the Ministry of Agriculture, Mexico and the Rockefeller Foundation. The aim of the programme, among the earliest for technical assistance to agriculture by international cooperation, was to increase rapidly and greatly the supply of staple food crops, especially wheat and maize. The programme had the highest priority because in 1944 the rate of population growth in Mexico was among the highest in the world; within 20 years the population was to increase from c. 23 to c. 46 million. The wheat improvement programme was remarkably successful. Within a period during which the population doubled, Mexico changed from an importer to an exporter of wheat, first becoming self-sufficient in 1956. This success depended very largely on Dr. Borlaug's achievements in breeding and selecting superior, high yielding cultivars, and in ensuring that their high yield potential was realized by using more fertilizer and better irrigation, and harvesting and distributing more efficiently. The new cultivars were developed by Dr. Borlaug by 1. acquiring from within Mexico and from many other countries, and then conserving a wide range of germ-plasm which maintained genetic diversity within the breeding lines. 2. Introducing into cultivars dwarfing genes from Japanese sources; these produce semi-dwarf plants with short straw which did not break under the weight of the heavier ears of the improved cultivars particularly when these were grown with high fertilizer and better irrigation. 3. Developing the shuttle breeding method in which segregating populations are grown each year in two or more environments differing in soil, temperature, rainfall and photoperiod, so that suitably adapted lines could be selected for use in different regions in Mexico, and in other countries. Following his success in Mexico, Dr. Borlaug was very influential in establishing similar programmes in other developing countries in which wheat was a staple food crop, where yields were low and in which demand often greatly exceeded supply. These programmes were based on the semi-dwarf cultivars developed and the methods used in Mexico. Again they were remarkable successful, notably in India and Pakistan, where production about tripled between 1966 and 1982 with massive benefits for the agricultural economies of these countries. At present it is estimated that the semi-dwarf wheats from Mexico, or their derivatives, are grown on some 36 million hectares in developing countries. Dr. Borlaug, as Associate Director, Rockefeller Foundation, was assigned to the International Maize and Wheat improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico as Director of the Wheat Research and Production Programme 1964-79, Acting Director 1981, and Consultant 1982 to the present. CIMMYT, an international centre of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, has continued and extended greatly its work on wheat along the lines established by Dr. Borlaug within Mexico and in collaboration with scientists in many other countries particularly in the developing world. CIMMYT and the organisations that preceded it also became important centres for the training of many young scientists who returned to their developing countries and their own programmes of crop improvement. The success of the wheat improvement programme in Mexico undoubtedly was very influential in the establishment in other countries of similar programmes for their staple food crops, and particularly for rice at the International Rice Research Institute which, within a few years of its founding in 1960, developed and released new, high yielding, semi-dwarf cultivars which increased dramatically the production of rice in Asia and elsewhere. Dr. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1970 and has received innumerable other honours and awards from his own country and many other countries. The claim for his recognition by the Royal Society rests on his achievements in applying science for the development of technologies which increased dramatically the production of staple food crops in Mexico and were the model for similar development in many other developing countries. There can be few biologists whose work in their own lifetime has brought such great benefit to so many people. |