Norman Borlaug died recently (12 September 2009) at the age of
95. Borlaug began life as an Iowa farm boy, was trained as a
plant pathologist at the University of Minnesota, and went on to
direct some of the most important plant breeding efforts of the
20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for
those efforts. Borlaug is father of the “Green Revolution”,
which began after World War II. Green Revolution agriculture is
often criticized because of its reliance on pesticides, hybrid
technology, and intensive water use, but it is also widely
credited as having saved more human lives, particularly in the
Third World, than anything else in the history of the human
species. Later in life, Borlaug conceded that there might be
some merit in these criticisms but that the Green Revolution was
a good start in the right direction. A good start it was, but we
still face many of the same problems that Borlaug encountered.
One of these is excess soil salt, or salinity. Salinity is a
soil condition character