Some views from Norman Borlaug

Here.

Excerpts:

In the food-versus-fuel debate, there's little doubt where Norman Borlaug's heart lies.

The father of the "Green Revolution," Borlaug's life has been dedicated to increasing the food supply in the developing world. His work with grains is credited with saving millions of lives, and in 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

So Borlaug, now 93, watches with dismay as ever-greater amounts of the world's grain are turned into motor fuel for developed nations.

"It isn't going to solve our energy problems, and it's going to disrupt our food system," Borlaug said Thursday.

He stressed that he's not against biofuels, "up to a certain point." But using food as a fuel requires a careful balance, and Borlaug tilts his arms wildly to show how lopsided he thinks the balance has become.
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Yet today's food-versus-fuel debate has a new element since 1970: growing concern about global climate change. Count Borlaug as a skeptic.

"I do believe we are in a period where, no question, the temperatures are going up," he said. "But is this a part of another one of those (natural) cycles that have brought on glaciers and caused melting of glaciers?"

He's not sure, and he doesn't think the science is, either.

"How much would we have to cut back to take the increasing carbon dioxide and methane production to a level so that it's not a driving force?" he asked. "We don't even know how much."

So today a new debate is under way, as the world struggles with the proper balance between food production, fuel production, global hunger and global warming. What would Borlaug do? He'd like to turn back the clock to seek greater investment in alternative energy -- fuel from plant waste, sunlight, water and wind.

"What we should have done is to spend much more research on many different sources of energy, and we neglected that," he said. "If we have to start with grain, that's very different than starting with wood chips."