Past & Present

Norman Borlaug has died after a life spanning 95 years. The life began around Cresco, Iowa, found early achievement as a formidable Golden Gopher wrestler at the the high level of University of Minnesota, and reached a pinnacle at Oslo in 1970, where he was handed the Nobel Peace Prize.

His prize came in recognition of his work as a plant scientist developing a strain of dwarf wheat that did well in hungry countries such as Mexico and Pakistan, places that turned from net importers to net exporters of grain. His achievement was central to what was then being dubbed a “green revolution.”

The ideas and effects of the green revolution are justifiably criticized and Professor Borlaug was understandably defensive.  This scientific approach married the farm economy of  countries to a more capital- and chemical-intensive type of farming, which ignored most of  a country’s indigenous knowledge and neglected the plight of its poorest farmers. 

I’ve studied those harms more than most people, but still believe Professor Borlaug is underappreciated and deserves wider recognition. This article in The Atlantic by a right-leaning writer agrees for reasons with which I disagree (great portrait though). I have to admit, part of my sympathy stems from my fellow experience as an Iowa kid who went out for wrestling.

I also had the honor of  meeting Professor Borlaug when he spoke in Platteville around 1988.

from the New York Times

The Nation magazine supplies a dead-on example of the way many conservatives are now criticizing the Obama administration. Only the criticisms come from early in the twentieth century. Father Charles Coughlin, a progenitor of today’s radio celebrities such as Rush Limbaugh, says of Franklin Roosevelt “So help me God, I will be instrumental in taking a Communist from the chair once occupied by Washington”, while people like Limbaugh today accuse Obama of being a communist.

The article (you will need a subscription to read it in its entirety),whether you embrace or reject the magazine’s leftist slant, does a great job of unearthing an anti-government thread running through the past century.