*This webpage was produced as an assignment for an undergraduate course at Davidson College*

 

The Beginning of the Green Revolution:

Borlaug’s Wheat

 

Introduction

Borlaug’s Methods

Benefits of Borlaug’s Wheat

Criticism of Borlaug’s Wheat

References

 

 

 

permission pending from Kansas State University (KSU 2004)

 

 

            Norman Borlaug is renowned as the father of the green revolution.  In 1944 he began work on a project designed to boost wheat production in Mexico.  Borlaug spent years corssing wheat varieties; by the early 1060s he had produced a disease resistant, high yield, widely adaptible dwarf wheat.  Borlaug’s wheat grows in countries around the world and is creditied with averting famine in India and Pakistan in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for starting the green revolution (Nobel, 2004).

            As good as Borlaug’s wheat may sound, some people would see it banned from global agriculture.  This website provides a closer look at the methods Borlaug used to develop his wheat and the implications of high yield crops—the praise and the criticism Borlaug’s wheat has generated since its creation.

 

Click here to read my biography of Norman Borlaug.

 


 

Questions or comments?  Email saparker@davidson.edu

 

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Page maintained by Sarah Parker, Davidson College class ‘05

Last modified 11 February 2004