Take a look at the remarkable life and legacy of Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace Prize winner (who, unlike so many recipients, actually deserved it) and the "forgotten benefactor of humanity." Here is his obit in the New York Times.
Bonus: Read Reason magazine's interview with Borlaug from 2000. Read the whole thing. Here's a piece of it:
Reason: What do you think of organic farming? A lot of people claim it's better for human health and the environment.
Borlaug: That's ridiculous. This shouldn't even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material that you have--the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues--and get them back on the soil, you couldn't feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests.
At the present time, approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen nutrients are utilized each year. If you tried to produce this nitrogen organically, you would require an additional 5 or 6 billion head of cattle to supply the manure. How much wild land would you have to sacrifice just to produce the forage for these cows? There's a lot of nonsense going on here.
If people want to believe that the organic food has better nutritive value, it's up to them to make that foolish decision. But there's absolutely no research that shows that organic foods provide better nutrition. As far as plants are concerned, they can't tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter. If some consumers believe that it's better from the point of view of their health to have organic food, God bless them. Let them buy it. Let them pay a bit more. It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive.Ave atque vale, Norman Borlaug, and thank you.
Oh, and for MM's Texas-based readers, Borlaug had been on the faculty of Texas A&M University, home of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, since 1984. Gig 'Em, Aggies!
One more thing: note that (of course) Borlaug was often attacked by environmentalists. I just want to ask, how many millions have the Greenies fed and helped to farm better crops? Just askin'. It's so much easier to gripe and pick at someone else's work than to do anything substantive of your own, isn't it?
UPDATE: The Insta-Prof observes: "Borlaug may have saved a billion lives, yet he’s barely known. The lives he saved were poor people, and he saved them with science. Doesn’t fit the narrative."
3 comments:
Minerva, as you well know, using organic foods makes the buyer feel good about their vegetable-based carbon footprint--that's really all that matters for them.
How much about the pie-eyed enviro-show is really about feeling good? Plenty, I dare say.
Certainly if people want to believe that the organic food has better nutritive value, it's up to them to make that foolish decision. But there's absolutely no research that shows that organic foods provide better nutrition.
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