Against the grain on Norman Borlaug

The feted agronomist may have saved a billion from starvation, but critics say he planted the seed for future environmental woes
Leo Hickman
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 12.00 BST

Accolades don't come much more gushing than those expressed this week following the death of Norman Borlaug, the agronomist whose lifelong work developing high-yield crops played a major role in heralding the so-called "green revolution" and who has often been credited as the "man who saved a billion lives".
Throughout his life he was feted with awards and honours across the world: the Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, India's Padma Vibhushan, to name just a few.
But despite the passionate humanitarian zeal that drove much of his work, he certainly had his critics. The criticism was not so much aimed at the man himself, but for the biotech legacy he played such a major role in creating. After all, this was the man who arguably did more than any other to nurture the era of monocrops, GM foods and the intensive use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilisers. He may well have saved a billion people from imminent starvation, but by doing so, say his critics, he also inadvertently helped to plant the seed for future environmental woes.
Has there ever been a person in human history whose legacy has pivoted so precariously on the fulcrum between good and bad? We will only know the complete answer in the decades to come once the full implications of the world being so reliant on what are now called "conventional" farming methods have been borne out in the context of overpopulation, peak oil, climate change, water depletion and all the other issues now so inextricably linked to modern farming.
Borlaug was not naive on these issues, though. In his Nobel acceptance speech, he recognised that "we are dealing with two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and the biologic power of human reproduction":
There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort. Fighting alone, they may win temporary skirmishes, but united they can win a decisive and lasting victory to provide food and other amenities of a progressive civilization for the benefit of all mankind.Borlaug said this in 1970 when the global human population stood at 3.7 billion. Today, it is fast approaching seven billion. Modern farming has won the "battle" with population control convincingly.
Borlaug also dismissed the sometimes barbed attack of the environmentalists by arguing that his high-yield crops helped protect rainforests because they allowed farmers to continue exploiting existing farmland, therefore avoiding the need to stray into neighbouring forests with their chainsaws and firesticks.
As he grew older, though, he became an increasingly fervent supporter of GM technology, arguing that without it the booming human population would face widespread famine.
It was another subject for which he often came into combat with some environmentalists. But he saved much of his disdain for the organic farming movement. This is what he told Reason magazine in 2000 when asked what he thought of organic farming:
Don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertiliser. That's when this misinformation [about the merits of organic farming] becomes destructive.
Borlaug's vision and subsequent success was underpinned by the widespread availability of cheap oil. His solution for feeding the world was one that could only have ever been dreamed up in that post-war era when the energy source was obvious and unquestioned. But times have changed: with Borlaug's passing we are reminded how impatiently we await a successor to dream up the answer to our battle between rising population levels and sustainable food production.