Person of the Week: Norman Borlaug

April 2, 2004 -- Norman Borlaug may have saved a billion lives.

He is a scientist who has spent his long life teaching poorer nations how to grow food successfully.

"Countless millions of men, women and children who will never know his name will never go to bed hungry," said Secretary of State Colin Powell at Borlaug's 90th birthday celebration, held at the State Department on Monday.

"When I see the misery and the hunger and poverty in the Third World, I'm angry. This is why I stay at it," Borlaug told ABCNEWS.

This week, he attended an international conference on food and farming in Uganda, where he told delegates of the challenge of producing enough food for the rapidly growing population.

Humble Beginnings

Borlaug was born and raised in Cresco, Iowa. He was educated in a one-room school house, but he got a lifetime's education on the American prairie during the devastating droughts of the 1930s.

"Most Americans aren't here today that lived [though] that process, and I think that's one of the things that helped push me towards international agricultural development," he said.

Borlaug began working in Mexico during the 1940s, when farmers were struggling and famine was on the horizon.

He discovered that instead of growing tall, beautiful stalks of wheat, shorter wheat was more efficient and had a greater resistance to disease. He's credited with saving the country from famine.

He then turned his attention to Asia and the Middle East, where he brought new types of seeds and fertilizers. Borlaug taught the underdeveloped nations of the world how to grow the food they needed to survive. It was called the "Green Revolution."

"I never thought that a small boy from a one-room country school would have had the experience of working at whatever this is — 50, 60, 70 countries around the world," he said.

Agronomy was not his original ambition.

"My ambition though as a boy was to become the second baseman for the Chicago Cubs. That I never realized!" said Borlaug.

In 1970 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

Newest Challenge

For Borlaug the challenge today is sub-Saharan Africa. He believes that Africa's farming could be revolutionized, but he knows talk of potential is not enough.

"The potential is there, but the potential, you can't eat potential," he said. "You've got to have reality — grain, food to eat — to relieve human misery."

Today, at 90, he splits his time between teaching at Texas A&M and working in the developing world.

In the year 2050, there may be 2 billion more people to feed than there are now. Farmers will have to more than double the amount of food they grow now just to keep up.

So Borlaug has not given much thought to retiring.

"I hope I can continue to work and be at least acceptably productive and die with my boots on, working," he said.