Kim du Toit has a couple of links for y'all about a person most of you probably don't know - and should. Here's a brief excerpt from the Atlantic magazine article he links to:
"Borlaug is an eighty-two-year-old plant breeder who for most of the past five decades has lived in developing nations, teaching the techniques of high-yield agriculture. He received the Nobel in 1970, primarily for his work in reversing the food shortages that haunted India and Pakistan in the 1960s. Perhaps more than anyone else, Borlaug is responsible for the fact that throughout the postwar era, except in sub-Saharan Africa, global food production has expanded faster than the human population, averting the mass starvations that were widely predicted -- for example, in the 1967 best seller Famine -- 1975! The form of agriculture that Borlaug preaches may have prevented a billion deaths."
That's billion, with a "b". And he's still at it.
Nice to see this recognition spreading! Too bad to see it happening only now--the Atlantic story was in the Jan '97 issue. :-( Not that I'm pointing fingers or anything--I first heard of him via the Atlantic article, but it's not like I've burned up the wires since them publicizing him.
The truly amazing part to me is that he has some serious detractors.
Here's another controversial guy doing interesting work with agriculture: Gordon Sato of the Manzanar Project.
He's trying to plant magrove forests in Eritrea to help them develop a more sustainable economy. Very cool stuff.
Borlaug is a hero, a living legend.
Eventually, genetic engineering will take up the burden of increasing yields, but for the past 50 years or so it's been Borlaug who has come through for the third world.