Norman Borlaug Interview (page: 2 / 9) Ending World Hunger	Print Interview

How important was shuttle breeding to the success of what you were trying to do in Mexico?

Norman Borlaug: Well, in Mexico we had a change in rust, that made us create those first single crosses of Marquis times Newthatch -- we called them Yaquis. We had four of them -- they had different maturity -- that were in these international tests, growing it maybe in the beginning at 20 to 30 locations. Later we had more than 100, including India and Pakistan. So the data confirmed our hypothesis: that you could cut the timing in half by planting early -- taking a risk in Sonora on frost -- harvesting, drying it, replanting and getting a second harvest by middle of June.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Norman Borlaug: Well, in my mind, I always said, why is it that -- by then we'd done testing with the old Minnesota, Montana and Canadian spring wheats -- Why is it that those things you can't bring down? Because we had the yield test with them included, comparing to the new ones. You can't bring them where the day length is 38 degrees or less, because they're the lowest yielding wheats when that happens, and yet here are the crosses that came from this. I had been forced by rust to make a second group to avoid a rust epidemic in Mexico. The first ones were Yaqui times -- or I should say Marquis times -- Newthatch from Minnesota. The second one was Mentana, an Italian wheat crossed to Kenya that had rust resistance. And combining those, this new rust didn't cause us any trouble.

[ Key to Success ] Vision

Do you believe there were any mistakes made in the Green Revolution? If you had it to do over again, is there anything you would do differently?

Norman Borlaug: Well, if we had gotten these things into commercial production earlier, it would've made a hell of a lot of difference for millions of people in India and Pakistan and China.

There was criticism of the Green Revolution. Did you find any of it valid? How do you respond to criticism?

Norman Borlaug: Oh, there was an abundance of criticism. I used to tell our team, "Just don't listen. Keep working." I figured, from what we saw pretty early, that Pakistan and India had this big potential. We could prove those doomsayers wrong.

What first brought you to India and Pakistan?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Norman Borlaug: At that time the criticism of Pakistan and India, especially, they said, "With this mound of people, there's no hope. They've got to die off to a fraction of the population of today." And I had seen enough on these tests that my trainees had run in many countries. Do not accept that. But there's behind the scene, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation, both of them together had decided that the breakthrough in production should come in India. The need was the greatest and it was to be built on not wheat, but on sorghum and millet and cassava. But then the Mexican wheats got into the picture and screwed all of that up.

[ Key to Success ] Vision

You encountered some political obstacles at first, and petitioned the Planning Minister of India, Ashok Mehta, and President Muhammad Ayub Khan of Pakistan for some policy changes. Can you tell us about that?

Norman Borlaug: I think in the case of Ayub Khan, the President, he came from an agricultural background as a boy in the hills of western Pakistan bordering with China. So he understood what the significance of these kinds of yields were. And the Secretary, I knew him personally, and I sent him a lot of these small samples. And he had seen those demonstrations also. It might've been in the spring of '64 -- somewhere around there.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Norman Borlaug: He had seen those demonstrations. He was a forester by training like I was, but he saw those changes that came about with the varieties and the fertilizer and their right rates of planting. So when I was there the next spring, I met him in the hall, and he had a box under his arm -- a little box. And he said, "I'm glad you came this morning because I'm leaving for China this afternoon." And he said, "That little box I've got here is a small sample of all of your wheat." And it took me a long time to find out -- and it's not documented even now -- that the first commercial wheat of the Mexican type that went to China came from Pakistan.

What were the policy changes you petitioned for?

Norman Borlaug: First was credit to permit the little farmer to buy the new seeds and the fertilizer. Then flexibility in agronomic practices -- when to plant and how to plant -- and then a change in policy as it relates to the whole system.

What about the market value of the wheat at harvest?

Norman Borlaug: They used to say the Mexican wheats were a bad quality. So automatically they would dock them ten percent. It wasn't true because Eva Viegas, our biochemist in the Office of Special Study, she was checking all of those things. But you get that into the literature and everybody believes it, if it comes from one of the most progressive parts of the government.

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