Quotes from Norman Borlaug

When the Nobel Peace Prize Committee designated me the recipient of the 1970 award for my contribution to the 'green revolution,' they were in effect, I believe, selecting an individual to symbolize the vital role of agriculture and food production in a world that is hungry, both for bread and for peace.

We will be guilty of criminal negligence, without extenuation, if we permit future famines.

Plant diseases, drought, desolation, despair were recurrent catastrophes during the ages - and the ancient remedies: supplications to supernatural spirits or gods.

Clearly, we need to rethink our attitudes about water and move away from thinking of it as nearly a free good and a God-given right.

Water covers about 70 percent of the Earth's surface. Of this total, only about 2.5 percent is fresh water, and most of this is frozen in the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, in soil moisture, or in deep aquifers not readily accessible for human use.

Pricing water delivery closer to its real costs is a necessary step to improving use efficiency.

These places I've seen have clubbed my mind - they are so poor and depressing. I don't know what we can do to help these people, but we've got to do something.

Contrasting sharply, in the developing countries represented by India, Pakistan, and most of the countries in Asia and Africa, seventy to eighty percent of the population is engaged in agriculture, mostly at the subsistence level.

Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the 'Population Monster.'

Yet food is something that is taken for granted by most world leaders despite the fact that more than half of the population of the world is hungry.

Without food, man can live at most but a few weeks; without it, all other components of social justice are meaningless.

Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists.

It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive.

You can't build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery.

For, behind the scenes, halfway around the world in Mexico, were two decades of aggressive research on wheat that not only enabled Mexico to become self-sufficient with respect to wheat production but also paved the way to rapid increase in its production in other countries.

As far as plants are concerned, they can't tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter.

The green revolution has an entirely different meaning to most people in the affluent nations of the privileged world than to those in the developing nations of the forgotten world.

There are no miracles in agricultural production.

Abnormal stresses and strains tend to accentuate man's animal instincts and provoke irrational and socially disruptive behavior among the less stable individuals in the maddening crowd.

In future irrigation schemes, water drainage and removal systems should be budgeted from the start of the project. Unfortunately, adding such costs to the original project often will result in a poor return on investment. Society then will have to decide how much it is willing to subsidize new irrigation development.

When wheat is ripening properly, when the wind is blowing across the field, you can hear the beards of the wheat rubbing together. They sound like the pine needles in a forest. It is a sweet, whispering music that once you hear, you never forget.

Therefore I feel that the aforementioned guiding principle must be modified to read: If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the same time cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.

We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life. For a decent and humane life, we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing, and effective and compassionate medical care.

Civilization as it is known today could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply.