3 ms·

Norman Borlaug, Saved Millions from Starvation - Dies Aged 95

40 points by rfreytag 17y ago

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
Much discussion already at: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=819926 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=819926 Different item - from the BBC - covering the same ground.
- fnid 17y ago
  A bit off this topic, but related. I clicked on that link and then clicked on the BBC article, because I knew the NYTimes sometimes makes me log in and the BBC doesn't. I took extra clicks just to avoid the NYTimes and their register wall. It seems restricting access to content is not the best bet. There is someone else out there who will provide the information more conveniently. Just like there is some software vendor that will provide it cheaper or some startup that will provide it for free.
  - Tangurena 17y ago
    The NY Times has a malware ad in their rotation, so today there is a high chance of an attempted drive-by-download, which tries to redirect you to protection-check07 dot com.
    - fnid 17y ago
      Another reason I am glad I block ads.
  - natrius 17y ago
    "It seems restricting access to content is not the best bet. There is someone else out there who will provide the information more conveniently." Few people do what you do. Creating an account and logging in once is not very difficult, so it's not much of a "restriction" on the content. I'd bet they make far more money using registration data than they lose from people like you seeking other sources.
asdlfj2sd33 17y ago
Here's something that bothers me. The super strains of wheat came from crossing a wide variety of diverse wheat species, just one example the sturdy stalk came from a Japanese dwarf variety. But now the further refinement of the vast majority of these original varieties has stopped. If they still exists, it's only as a curiosity or as stored seed in vaults. The new super strains, were bred by moving them up and down the globe to get more harvests each year. This made them able to grow almost anywhere. That's fantastic. But why did we stop there? Why not keep going and now refine them to the location? Near the equator days are the same length year round and it's hot and humid. Near the poles in summer you can have almost continuous light. If we have one variety that can give high yields in both extremes, imagine how yield could be increased if we refined that variety and adapted it to the extremes? Why isn't there a massive international effort constantly developing new better, higher yielding and more disease resistant verities? It would be difficult to make private investment in this profitable. It takes a lot of time, a good bit of effort, and improvements are incremental. It's difficult to make that profitable, especially when you can invest in fertilizer instead.
- rms 17y ago
  I'm sure there is room for incremental improvement, but we've certainly reached the point of diminishing returns. I briefly searched and can't find sources, but I believe the wheat of 1900 used around 12% of its energy to make food and the rest to sustain its own structure. Now it's something like 90% of the energy the wheat receives goes towards making food.
  - rfreytag 17y ago
    Good points but you could still engineer the plants to: grow in saline conditions (I think that is being pursued), over wider range, to resist drought or flood better, defeat pests and blights (rust was mentioned in the article), and come back from being downed by weather. The goal being to more frequently achieve maximal yield by increasing the range and durability of the crop. The last bit would be to eliminate the need to sow the crop by having wheat be a perennial. That would greatly reduce the energy input to the crop. Plenty more to do.
Tangurena 17y ago
I'd put 2 other names ahead of his: Stanislov Petrov - who didn't intentionally decide to not start WW3, he just decided that if it were going to happen, the Americans would have started it differently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov Fritz Haber - Looking to make money, he came up with a way to make fertilizer from the nitrogen in the air. This is now the process that underlies about half of the agricultural fertilizer production. If this hadn't been invented, the upper limit of human population would be a lot lower than it is now - we'd have got to about 3 billion people before we reached the point where we couldn't feed any more people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
- diN0bot 17y ago
  re: Haber: increasing the limit is both a good and bad thing. maybe it provides more people to tackle the problem of the limit, and maybe it makes the problem of the limit even more tragic.
crpatino 17y ago
Love to be the contrarian... this guy was probably good hearted, but he did not "saved millions from starvation". Worst case he may have enabled other people to curse billions to starvation. Overall, grain yields may have grown up. However, one must remember that "demand" in economics terms is not what you want but what you are willing and able to pay for. The green revolution technologies have impoverished and taken out of business small farmers but in the developed and subdeveloped world, reducing food security overall. Sure, they produce more than never... but they have gone into debt in order to afford the seeds fertilizers, machinery, etc. Then prices crash due to over production and those who stay in business do only so because of the subsides of their governments. On the other hand, the people who controls the comodities market do not sale affordable food to the poor. They funnel the extra grain yields into the production of meat and other highly industrialized food products that can be afforded by the affluent, and the poor continue to scrap a living with agrarian methods already known in the dark ages. So, for my part, I'll let the guy rest in peace. I believe he wanted to do good, and even did some of that... but such a hero? I don't buy it.

40 points by rfreytag 17y ago

Much discussion already at: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=819926 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=819926 Different item - from the BBC - covering the same ground.

fnid 17y ago
A bit off this topic, but related. I clicked on that link and then clicked on the BBC article, because I knew the NYTimes sometimes makes me log in and the BBC doesn't. I took extra clicks just to avoid the NYTimes and their register wall. It seems restricting access to content is not the best bet. There is someone else out there who will provide the information more conveniently. Just like there is some software vendor that will provide it cheaper or some startup that will provide it for free.
- Tangurena 17y ago
  The NY Times has a malware ad in their rotation, so today there is a high chance of an attempted drive-by-download, which tries to redirect you to protection-check07 dot com.
  - fnid 17y ago
    Another reason I am glad I block ads.
- natrius 17y ago
  "It seems restricting access to content is not the best bet. There is someone else out there who will provide the information more conveniently." Few people do what you do. Creating an account and logging in once is not very difficult, so it's not much of a "restriction" on the content. I'd bet they make far more money using registration data than they lose from people like you seeking other sources.

asdlfj2sd33 17y ago

Here's something that bothers me. The super strains of wheat came from crossing a wide variety of diverse wheat species, just one example the sturdy stalk came from a Japanese dwarf variety. But now the further refinement of the vast majority of these original varieties has stopped. If they still exists, it's only as a curiosity or as stored seed in vaults. The new super strains, were bred by moving them up and down the globe to get more harvests each year. This made them able to grow almost anywhere. That's fantastic. But why did we stop there? Why not keep going and now refine them to the location? Near the equator days are the same length year round and it's hot and humid. Near the poles in summer you can have almost continuous light. If we have one variety that can give high yields in both extremes, imagine how yield could be increased if we refined that variety and adapted it to the extremes? Why isn't there a massive international effort constantly developing new better, higher yielding and more disease resistant verities? It would be difficult to make private investment in this profitable. It takes a lot of time, a good bit of effort, and improvements are incremental. It's difficult to make that profitable, especially when you can invest in fertilizer instead.

rms 17y ago
I'm sure there is room for incremental improvement, but we've certainly reached the point of diminishing returns. I briefly searched and can't find sources, but I believe the wheat of 1900 used around 12% of its energy to make food and the rest to sustain its own structure. Now it's something like 90% of the energy the wheat receives goes towards making food.
- rfreytag 17y ago
  Good points but you could still engineer the plants to: grow in saline conditions (I think that is being pursued), over wider range, to resist drought or flood better, defeat pests and blights (rust was mentioned in the article), and come back from being downed by weather. The goal being to more frequently achieve maximal yield by increasing the range and durability of the crop. The last bit would be to eliminate the need to sow the crop by having wheat be a perennial. That would greatly reduce the energy input to the crop. Plenty more to do.

Tangurena 17y ago

I'd put 2 other names ahead of his: Stanislov Petrov - who didn't intentionally decide to not start WW3, he just decided that if it were going to happen, the Americans would have started it differently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov Fritz Haber - Looking to make money, he came up with a way to make fertilizer from the nitrogen in the air. This is now the process that underlies about half of the agricultural fertilizer production. If this hadn't been invented, the upper limit of human population would be a lot lower than it is now - we'd have got to about 3 billion people before we reached the point where we couldn't feed any more people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

diN0bot 17y ago
re: Haber: increasing the limit is both a good and bad thing. maybe it provides more people to tackle the problem of the limit, and maybe it makes the problem of the limit even more tragic.

crpatino 17y ago

Love to be the contrarian... this guy was probably good hearted, but he did not "saved millions from starvation". Worst case he may have enabled other people to curse billions to starvation. Overall, grain yields may have grown up. However, one must remember that "demand" in economics terms is not what you want but what you are willing and able to pay for. The green revolution technologies have impoverished and taken out of business small farmers but in the developed and subdeveloped world, reducing food security overall. Sure, they produce more than never... but they have gone into debt in order to afford the seeds fertilizers, machinery, etc. Then prices crash due to over production and those who stay in business do only so because of the subsides of their governments. On the other hand, the people who controls the comodities market do not sale affordable food to the poor. They funnel the extra grain yields into the production of meat and other highly industrialized food products that can be afforded by the affluent, and the poor continue to scrap a living with agrarian methods already known in the dark ages. So, for my part, I'll let the guy rest in peace. I believe he wanted to do good, and even did some of that... but such a hero? I don't buy it.