Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity (1997) | Hacker News Reader

Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity (1997)

theatlantic.com

49 pointsmike_esspe13 comments

Norman Borlaug is truly a forgotten hero. As a kid growing up in India, the story about the Green Revolution went somewhat like this: "In the early 60's, India realised that we would face massive food shortages. So, a program of research was initiated and scientists came up with better quality crops. The man most responsible for this was Mr.M.S. Swaminathan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._S._Swaminathan)

Its true that Mr.Swaminathan was instrumental in leading the effort that adapted the foreign crops to Indian tastes (yes, the rice/wheat apparently tasted/looked unappealing). But the most significant breakthrough was by Mr.Borlaug, who I heard about only after reading this excellent article as an adult: http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2009/09/13/norman-borlaug-th...

Without Mr.Borlaug's initiative, progress in India would not have been possible. He has my sincerest gratitude for his work.

He is well known and deservedly celebrated among groups where few people suffer from the naturalist fallacy, such as libertarians and futurists

Unfortunately such groups have very little power and are generally looked down on.

Henry A Wallace did for America what Norman Borlaug did for the world; he's a lot more familiar, and his story is as tremendous.

Not very exciting but a summary: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=w00...

As a child he walked the countryside around Iowa State University with Emeritus Professor George Washington Carver, learning to love biology.

As a scientist he determined canny American farmers wouldn't accept a handout, but would buy better seed stock, so formed Pioneer Hybrid seed company (in his back yard) and marketed better seed as a new American ideal.

As VP and Secty of Ag, he formed the US Agriculture Extension program to promote agriculture education across American and around the world via Research Stations.

For better or for worse, he's personally responsible for the use of corn as the standard crop. He changed the direction of the world, and can be credited with feeding billions.

That article is more than a decade old! Much water has flown under the bridge since then. Fast forward to 2012, the "developed world" itself is conceding there are also many problems with this "green revolution" approach, that it is no longer appropriate to continue with this monocultural, faddish fixation of "technological, scientific solution always saves the world". For e.g:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1029447...

/rant

Meanwhile all aspects of food and water, both of which are a fundamental human need, has been heavily commoditised and abstracted out of our view all the way to reductio ad absurdum levels in modern discourse. It is going to take several unmitigated disasters before nuanced views around this topic will even gain traction.

/rant

It's incorrect to treat "technological, scientific solutions" as a single entity. There's many entities performing science and creating technology, and some of them pay more attention to side-effects and long-term effects than others.

Ultimately it's more of an economic question -- what can society do to encourage long-term thinking and careful risk-management instead of focusing on the short-term immediate rewards? If we focus on short-term rewards, we end up selecting for profits that are immediately realizable while ignoring the long-term costs.

From what I previously read on india:

Farmers often waste water because water is "free", and the majority of the food often rot. This exacerbate the problem of farming enough for everyone eat.

We'll need technological solution, in addition to taking a variety of non-technological measures in order to protect our harvest and the local environment, such as encouraging farmers to use only as much water necessary to grow their crops.

We already have that technology.

It is called capitalism and it has worked wonders in the west (how many people are starving in the UK?). Start by charging whatever the water cost to produce and see the changes that makes.

I keep being surprised by people who hate capitalism so much that they would rather see people starve.

You can't charge what the water 'cost', it was thousands of years of filtering into the underground aquifers. And it is too late, the water has been used. Same problem with any non- or slow replenishing natural resource that we've been boosting off of at accelerated rates. When they run out dependent systems have the potential for rapid failure, much more rapid than we are likely to come up with solutions for, and people will die. Supply and demand work, but people will die in the process.

Who hates capitalism?

India does not hate it, they've embraced it. Of course, not everywhere. Why? because the situation is not the same. Having > 500 million people subsisting on agriculture is not the same. Different situations warrant different solutions.

Charge for water you say? Who will collect the charges? A bureaucrat. If the price is too steep, perhaps the farmers will bribe him. If it isn't, he'll probably keep x% of the collections anyway.

The infrastructure to distribute all the food that will soon rot in warehouses....is present, or can be easily acquired. The corruption, inefficiency and laziness... not much can be done about that

India's recent economic model is largely capitalist.[201] India has been a member of WTO since 1 January 1995.[203]

source: wikipedia

Yes, because what are the saved lives of hundreds of millions in the Third World in comparison with vague, unverifiable prophecies of "unmitigated disasters". If nothing else, be happy that the Green Revolution has effectively prevented further warfare between India and Pakistan, both nuclear armed countries.

Forgotten by whom?

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