Meet Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Saved Billions From Starvation

In 1970, back in the days when the Nobel Prize meant something other than that award which is given to the greatest conservative hating liberal in the room at the time, Norman Borlaug won the Peace Prize, but he actually deserved one for a scientific field as well. His advancements in genetically engineered crops and inorganic farming methods you see were credited with saving over 1 Billion lives from the agony of death by starvation. That's a Billion, with a B.

There is a reason why I bring Norman's story up today, besides the fact that he clearly deserves to have his story told. (To see the impact of Borlaug, on your travels this week, look at everyone you see, and say to yourself, only half of every person you see would be alive today were it not for Borlaug. That's about one half of every man, woman, and child, who live on our planet today, are able to avoid death due to starvation thanks to the scientific advances made by this one person.) Last week I saw on my favorite bad news feed, facebook, (my principle complaint about facebook is that it seems to have turned many of the people I know into teenage girls,) a plug for outlawing foodstuffs not developed through completely organic methods and materials, and leveling criminal charges against companies such as Monsanto and Cargill, for using genetically enhanced products.

There comes a point in time when stupidity, albeit accidentally, crosses into the realm of evil, and this is one of those points in our history. I choose to thank God for Monsanto and Cargill, they go about the thankless task each and every day of providing enough food to feed the world, and they do it so well that thankless hippies are able to spend their time not farming or producing anything of value on their own, but actually protesting those giants who do feed the world. We are able to involve ourselves in nonsensical activities precisely because the Monsanto's of the world have made our lives easier. We have the wealth of technology here in America to be able to spend an inordinate amount of time not working at feeding ourselves, but instead complaining about those who do.

Farming our current supply of arable land using only organic farming methods will provide enough food to feed a little more than half of the world's population today. Seven years ago, it would have fed 2/3rds. As an experiment dear hippies, please tell the rest of us who you believe deserves to starve to death, for no other reason than to satisfy your desire to have your ideas become economically viable.

It is one thing to make the personal choice to pay extra for the laughably false claims made by advocates of organic farming. That's the decision of the individual to make, and it's none of my business what other people decide for themselves. That is no longer true however when other people conspire to take my choices away from me. I do not desire to pay the prices of organic farming personally. It is an inefficient method of food production that increases the cost of groceries by up to 300%, and adds nothing of value to the quality. The lies told to support the claims of this farming method's virtues have been so thoroughly debunked, that its almost embarrassing to keep hearing those claims, and I'm not even the one making them. Make no mistake however, the lies told to support the organic methodology at this point in our tale merely moved us from stupidity to annoyance. Our journey is only half complete.

Where we move to evil is with the sudden revelation that somehow, the pollen from inorganic crops have contaminated the virgin seeds of the organic farmer, tainting their food. Through this, these fine folk have clogged up our court systems in an effort to inflict organic only crops on the rest of the world. Using scare tactics, baloney science, fabrications, and an overzealous regulatory apparatus, the organic food advocates have undertaken to force the mass starvation of half of the world's population.

So, just to pose the question, where would 3.5 Billion deaths place these people on the list of the world's greatest mass murderers? It's not that I despise all liberals, as many of my best friends and family are left of center politically. It's their complete disconnect from the consequences reaped by their lunacy that irks me so. Once upon a time we used a substance called DDT in America. As a direct result we eliminated Malaria, Bed Bugs, and other diseases from the list of things we had to worry about each morning upon awakening. Rachel Carson wrote a book entitled, "Silent Spring." (As a side note, any book with such an obvious emotional appeal being used for its title, should be automatically suspect if being touted as a scientific endeavor. The science of her work has been thoroughly debunked, and yet here we are, still without the substance that saved us from Malaria.) Bed bugs are making a comeback, and to date, since the banning of DDT in the third world before the mosquito populations of those countries could be quelled as they were here, 50 Million people to date have died of Malaria. This places Rachel Carson and her loyal band of envirozealots at the very tippy top of the mass murderers pyramid. Never being held to account for their atrocities, these same geniuses have moved onto the realm of global warming scare mongering and are now demanding that we save ourselves from technological advancements in the world of agriculture.

Life expectancies are double in nations with reliable electricity grids that can sustain refrigeration for the bulk of their populations than in nations that can not. This seems to be the dividing line, and the global warming zealots are seeking to make it more difficult for third world nations to join the former group, and at the same time seeking to remove those already with that benefit from that position. That makes them evil as well. Those of us who oppose the left's agenda will very often be labeled as Nazi's by them. I find this pernicious for a few reasons. One, it diminishes the evil once perpetrated by the Nazi's, and they do this every time a political disagreement occurs. Two, it is nothing more than an ad hominem attack designed to deflect the intellectual depravity of one's own argument, it is used to simply dismiss ideas as not even being worthy of consideration. Three, it is a liable that connotes an evil intention where the opposite is true.

I would never label these envirozealots as Nazi's however, as the crimes they are attempting to perpetrate against humanity make those committed by the Nazi regimes pale in comparison. While I have no doubt as to the sincerity of their beliefs that they are effecting a positive change for humanity, the results are somewhat different. They are attempting, whether they realize it or not, to starve, cause food poisoning, or inflict with disease, 3.5 Billion of their fellow man. How does that compare with the Nazi's?

In the end, Liberalism is about forcing others to act according to the will of the liberals self anointed to be our elite leaders, and not as they would wish to. In the end, Liberals are willing to kill off half the planet in order to affect this change. That in my book constitutes evil.

By the way, Norman Borlaug is also considered to be the father of the modern day Green Movement. Revolutions do indeed eat their young.

Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.

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Comment by Carol Williams on February 22, 2013 at 1:01am: Insofar as I've only recently become aware of GMOs it's highly likely that I've been eating them for however long they've been out there - what is that 30, 40 years? - and haven't in that time noticed any deleterious health effects. I think it's just as likely that most of your readers have been eating them that long as well, just as blithely unaware of it as I was. We happily ate lean finely textured beef (LFTB), too, until some food Nazi smacked the 'pink slime' label on it and all of a sudden every yahoo on every street corner is an expert on how horrible it is for you! No it isn't, witness the fact that you've been eating it for 40 years!

John, you said in another post that 'extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence' and I've yet to see anything beyond anecdotal 'evidence' linking ailments to GMOs or LFBT. People can become allergic to anything (even organic strawberries, for example) at any time for no apparent reason. Such vagaries are hardly substantiating evidence!

So why would there be such a militant faction opposed to increasing food abundance? It makes little sense until one recalls that in prior takeovers, most notably Russia, starvation was one of the weapons used to quell the rebellious who had no taste for tyranny. Starvation is hard to inflict when abundance abounds. Has it not clicked in anyone's mind that the current administration is also opposed to home gardens? Connect the dots, people, that's your food supply! The would-be oppressors are trying to take it away from you just as surely as they're grabbing for your guns! Get a clue!!! So what if lettuce has a rat gene in it? If you were starving would you eat a rat if that's all there was? I daresay you would and probably be glad to get it. So shut up and eat your lettuce. You're digestive system will figure out what's nutrient and what isn't .... just as it always has.

Thanks for your very informative post about the too-little heralded Mr Borlaug.

Comment by Midge Blatt on February 21, 2013 at 12:01am: I hardly ever comment on anything and I will NOT continue to play this fighting word game. I don't care personally who is right or wrong. Mainly I post just good articles that others write that I like. I asked my "home authority" who writes books on the environment [see Google], what he thought as this was a topic he knows about and and I then quoted him WITHOUT telling him first. He refuses to get in the middle of this fight. This is my FINAL note on this. Who ever you are YOU WIN and may you have a long happy joyfilled life.

Comment by John Wiseman on February 20, 2013 at 3:13pm: @ Midge Blatt,

I responded to your comment with my own, but I held back some other thoughts for a more private forum, such as a private email. Since you have set your personal preferences to block emails, I feel that addressing those more private concerns publicly is warranted. In your post, you called me disgraceful. This was due to your erroneous contention that I had mischaracterized Borlaug's message in some fashion, or taken his name in vain to use your very own insulting language. I now count two responses that show solid evidence that you knew nothing about the subject matter on which you attacked me personally. I am willing to debate about any of my posts, but I pride myself of responding only in the manner with which I am addressed originally. If you are respectful, I'll show you the same respect. If you choose to take the insulting route, well then I feel justified in responding in kind.

MIDGE, GET YOUR EGGS STRAIGHT IN YOUR BASKET BEFORE THROWING THEM NEXT TIME.

On a further note, my dearest Midge, insulting someone on a public forum, such as you did me, and then hiding from response is probably one of the most cowardly and childish things as a person is capable of. To heck with you Midge, and to heck with the horse you rode in on. You and your condescension are superior to no one.

Comment by Vern Shotwell on February 20, 2013 at 9:23am: Sorry, Midge.

Norman Borlaug championed Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs to boost food production in the world.

If one prefers "organic farming", fine. Live with the lower yields and so on. All farming is organic by definition. Unless you eat rocks and stuff.

You do not get exclusive use of the word organic!

Comment by John Wiseman on February 20, 2013 at 9:19am: Midge, your statement is fallacy from beginning to end. Listen to Borlaug's own statement's made in the video provided as the refutation. he advocates strongly for increased usage of technology and puts himself in direct contradiction to the organic movement, and he does this specifically in his own words. That the proof of this is actually provided above, in a video in which Borlaug himself appears means that you either did not bother to watch the video, (doing the requisite homework assignment,) or are simply choosing not to accept reality. By the way, Borlaug agreed to appear on the Penn and Teller episode, (not only one, but two of them,) specifically for the express purpose of refuting the claims made by the organic farming community. (When Penn Gillette calls and asks for you to go on his show entitled, "Bull S***," and explains that it's going to expose the organic farming hoax, if you have two functioning grey cells as Norman Borlaug clearly had, you should understand what's up.)

Comment by Midge Blatt on February 20, 2013 at 8:26am: My husband Harvey commented:"What the descriptive statements say about Borlaug are okay, but most of this article is an incorrect and baseless tirade against organic farming, which Borlaug favored. In other words, the person who wrote the article used Borlaug’s name in vain to make his article seem authoritative. Really disgraceful. Borlaug would have disagreed with this article. (He died in 2009 of lymphoma at age 95)."

Comment by John Wiseman on February 19, 2013 at 10:09am: Chuck, you've earned this.

Go to the cabinet next to your stove, there you will find something that looks like a large stew pot, it is not. It is a helmet which will protect you from the evil Zionist mind control death ray. Proper application of this all important device necessitates a generous layer of either tin foil or aluminum foil be used in conjunction as an insulator. You should begin wearing these at all times when out in public, as this is where those rascally Zionists are most likely to begin the attempt to gain control of your mind.

Comment by Vern Shotwell on February 19, 2013 at 10:02am: "Typical Republican that cannot form a free thought on their own." Chuck O'Donnell?

You've just insulted most of the 50,000 members here! Have you read the Terms of Service here? It begins with "You agree that you will not attack or defame other members. You agree that your membership on Tea Party Nation exists as the will and pleasure of the management..."
You might want to quit while you are ahead...before management finds you.

Comment by John Wiseman on February 19, 2013 at 9:41am: Chuck, you are that perfect example of why I never delete comments from my threads. Your words, the ones that you typed into your keyboard, as far as I'm concerned shall live forever. You brought up the blood liable, not me. That's what makes you the classic Jew Hater. Laughable? I do not believe so, and we'll let it stand forever, on February 19, 2013, Chuck O'Donnell outed himself as a white supremacist. You've earned the label Chuck my Nazi friend, wear it with pride. I know I'll refer to you that way whenever I see you on any thread from now on, and I'll be sure to refer back to this very comment to remind you and others why I chose to refer to you that way. Here are your words, in case you've forgotten:

The Kosher industry has been extorting money from almost every consumer in America for decades, did you mind paying the kosher tax for putting their symbols on every food stuff? Where barely a couple percent of consumers actually buy Kosher?

I know I never will.

Comment by John Wiseman on February 19, 2013 at 9:17am: Chuck O'Donnell,

You've crossed a line here, you anti semetic POS. Kosher tax? Where on Earth did you hear about that? There is no such thing. That symbol that a Rabbi looked an operation over and put his name on a letter that says its safe for people keeping Kosher to eat costs you nothing. That is a liable spread by CAIR, a Muslim Brotherhood front group expressly for the purpose of stirring up Jew hatred in our country. Only a true moron would fall for such an obvious lie.

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