A central figure in the "green revolution", Norman Ernest Borlaug (March 25, 1914- ) was born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, USA. For many decades, he has collaborated with Mexican scientists on problems of wheat improvement; he has also collaborated with scientists from other parts of the world, especially from India and Pakistan, in adapting the new wheats to new lands and in gaining acceptance for their production. When the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in cooperation with the Mexican government established the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), an autonomous international research training institute having an international board of trustees and staff, Dr. Borlaug was made director of its International Wheat Improvement Program.

Enormous challenges lie ahead to ensure that the projected world population in 2030 of around nine billion people is adequately and equitably fed, and in environmentally sustainable ways, Nobel Prize Awardee Norman Borlaug told an audience at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) earlier today.

Mr. Borlaug, called the father of the Green Revolution for his pioneering work on high-yielding wheat varieties and awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1970 for his lifetime work to feed a hungry world, was speaking at the Manila ADB Headquarters as part of its Distinguished Speakers program.

In his speech, called "From Green Revolution to Gene Revolution," he enumerated the numerous challenges and tasks that various sectors have to face and perform in order to ensure global food security.

Over the next 50 years, he says, world food supply will have to double, driven by rapidly growing consumption. The food, feed, and fiber demand of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) larger and wealthier population is likely to double by mid-century, while the arable land base is likely to shrink by 20%.

Across Asia, increasing yields in areas where food crop yields are already high and improving the declining income status of small farmers are major challenges. The potential for expanding the arable land area in the region is limited, and as such, future expansions in food production must come largely from land already in use.

Compounding the challenges are issues of limited water resources and the threat of crop diseases. By the year 2025, as much as two thirds of the world population is likely to live under water-stress conditions. In 1999, a new race of stem rust was reported in East Africa that is capable of severely damaging perhaps half of the world’s bread wheat area. It is only a matter of time before it spreads to Asia.

To fight hunger all over the globe, Mr. Borlaug called for a twin-track strategy - first, productivity-led agricultural growth component, and second, safety net programs to assist the chronically hungry.

He says that with biotechnology, new scientific tools will be developed to help meet future food and fiber challenges. For instance, using high yielding varieties, over the past 50 years, world cereal production has tripled - from 650 million to 1,900 million tons - with only a 10% increase in total cultivated cereal area.

Specifically, in the PRC, imports will be increasingly important and new agricultural science and technology will be critical. Far-reaching policy reforms are also needed in agricultural tax policy, land tenure, and farmer education.

Indian agriculture must also go through a major transformation. Prevailing cropping patterns and crop management systems must be transformed, especially in the irrigated areas, and precision farming practices are needed in the high potential areas.

See his presentation.