 | | President George Bush and Norman Borlaug - White House photo by Chris Greenberg |
CFANS alumnus Norman Borlaug, father of the “Green
Revolution” has been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest
civilian honor. “The most fitting tribute we can offer this good man is to renew
ourselves to his life’s work, and lead a second Green Revolution that feeds the
world, and today we’ll make a pledge to do so,” President George W. Bush said at
the Capitol Rotunda ceremony on July 17.
Borlaug’s work on high-yield, disease-resistant
varieties of wheat is credited with alleviating starvation in India and Pakistan
in the 1960s, as well as with helping Mexico become self-sufficient in grain
production. He said at the medal ceremony that hunger remains a problem with the
rapid rise in the world’s population. “We need better and more technology, for
hunger and poverty and misery are very fertile soils into which to plant all
kinds of ‘isms,’ including terrorism.”
Borlaug, now 93, earned degrees in forestry and plant pathology in
the late 1930s and early ’40s at the University of Minnesota. He’s expected to
attend the Department of Plant Pathology’s centennial celebration in
September. | 
