The World Food Prize Foundation

The Borlaug Blog

#BorlaugBlog

For 30 years, the World Food Prize has worked to build on the legacy of Dr. Norman Borlaug, the man who saved a billion lives, by recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. Our Laureates, our close partners, and our staff work tirelessly to alleviate hunger through innovative approaches, and we hope to share their expertise, research, and personal stories on The Borlaug Blog.

In the Borlaug Blog, we will occasionally post a blog featuring stories, research, and expert opinion from our Laureates, partners, youth representatives and staff. It is our hope that this blog series will create a conversation between farmers, NGOs, CEOs and people across the globe.

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Dr. Norman E. Borlaug: A Great Hunger Fighter

By Dr. N Parasuraman Raman posted on 10/21/2019 at 8:00 AM
Dr. Norman Borlaug first met Prof. M. S. Swaminathan when he was very young (age 28) in September of 1953 in Madison, Wisconsin, during the convention of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. There, Prof MSS heard his first scientific presentation on a new approach to control rust disease in...

Sparking the Vegetable Revolution

By Simon Groot posted on 10/14/2019 at 8:00 AM
Being awarded the 2019 World Food Prize is a tremendous honor, and I’m excited to join hundreds of food and development experts, innovators and leaders from around the globe at this year’s Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium. The theme—“Pax Agricultura: Peace Through Agriculture”—could not be more timely, as we confront the...

Take it to All the Farmers

By Hale Ann Tufan posted on 10/07/2019 at 8:00 AM
Here are two words you don’t hear together every day: Semantic Satiation. The term refers to a psychological phenomenon where words lose meaning from overuse. Applied to our daily lives it is the overuse of certain words in our vocabulary: literally, unique, very, basically… the list goes on. Agricultural development...

Approaching Dr. Borlaug’s Dream for High Nutrient Crops Through DNA Sequencing and Gene Editing for “Designer Crops”

By Ren Wang posted on 09/30/2019 at 8:00 AM
Twenty years ago, in a hot yet greening corn field in Longli County, Guizhou Province of China, I was accompanying Dr. Norman Borlaug to visit a farmer’s field of QPM (Quality Protein Maize). I was then Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). I was involved in...

Shifting the Attention from Farms to Farmers

By Purvi Mehta posted on 09/23/2019 at 8:00 AM
Norman Borlaug described food as a moral right. Now decades later, while many in the world continue to advocate for this fundamental right, for most, the right to food has become a reality. Production of staple foods may be less of a prevailing rhetoric and may take less precedence...

Open Data and the Path to Global Food Security

By Cathie Woteki posted on 09/16/2019 at 8:00 AM
Making government information open and accessible is one important step toward ensuring global food security. An underlying premise of the global open data movement is that by opening up data, governments at all levels will make better decisions, entrepreneurship and new businesses will flourish, and benefits will flow to the...

The Lessons of a Picky Eater

By Clara Cownie posted on 09/09/2019 at 8:00 AM
As my internship at the World Food Prize is coming to an end, I find myself in a time of reflection. I am reflecting on the path that got me here and reflecting on what I will take with me when I am gone. As a child, most parents try...

Women Feed Hope: My World Food Prize Message

By Sibani Ram posted on 09/02/2019 at 3:49 PM
Huddled in a soft blanket on a sophomore year snow day, I read a haunting article in the New York Times that made my heart stop. The article was Jeffrey Gettleman’s documentation of famine in the world’s youngest country – War Consumes South Sudan, a Young National Cracking Apart. As...

Teach as Borlaug Did

By José A. Zaglul posted on 08/26/2019 at 8:00 AM
The advances in science in the past few decades have occurred at a speed and sophistication like we had never experienced before in human history. It is also estimated that in the next two to five years the advances would be greater than ever in our history. As technology develops at...

Making Magic Happen

By Mark McLellan posted on 08/19/2019 at 8:00 AM
Truly extraordinary magicians--those who capture our attention and spark our sense of wonder-- are a rare breed. In agriculture, they walk among us, defying the improbable and meeting the impossible head-on. While few of the public recognize their work, we encounter it every day at grocery stores, farmers’ markets and...
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