Norman Borlaug

Yeah, I'm glad your keeping an open mind to this DandelionPrincess, and you too matthew. My minds already pretty much made up on GM food, but its a complicated issue.

Dr. Borlaug isn't. He's a hero, a humanitarian who's devoted his whole life to ending the biggest scourge of humanity, hunger. In his noble life he's been personally responsible for saving tens of millions from starvation. hes spent his life in harsh conditions, not because hes had to endure them, but because he choose to, he knew thats where he could do the most good. He is a cadillac of men and inspires faith in the goodness of humanity. Dr. Norman Borlaug is the greatest man who's ever lived. Thank you Dr. Borlaug.

 

The actual concept of GM food , i have no problem with. But like you said its a complicated issue.

 

Yeah, its complicated, problems could arise from crosspolination with non GM crops, or the introduction of new allergens. But most of the risks I've heard touted are hypothetical, and the benifits are pretty real. Nothing's ever totally safe, but it seems worth it when you can feed the whole world.

 

Wow, this thread really balloned since I last saw it.

FYI: how much golden rice would have to be eaten daily to prevent severe deficiencies:
http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/topics/goldenrice/how_much.html

I am glad to see you found the agbioview website. If you sign up for their newsletter, you'll receive emails (about 4/week) that will keep you up to date on an international level regarding GE crops. There is alotta Dr. Borlaug stuff there too, if you search there immense archives.

 

At first you were claiming it was 2 billion, now you're down to 10s of millions. I'd actually like to see some proof concerning this, if you don't mind.

 

Did you actually read through the entire thread? I can't actually blame you if you didn't... it's very long and wordy... and I have ADD. Actually took me a few seconds to recognise you there...Guess I have dyslexia too, hah.

First off its impossible to quantify how many lives this great man has touched, he launched a revolution in agriculture that helped portions of the world which were undergoing an explosion in population; to feed themselfs. During this time period (the 50's, 60's and 70's) Mexico, India, Pakistan, and China's populations were rapildy growing, and they simply didn't farm well enough to provide adequate sustainence. Dr. Borlaug along with a handfull of colleagues personally spent years in these countries sharing better forms of agriculture and high yield wheat that allowed these countries to produce more food 3 fold. This increase would have been impossible without the work of Dr. borlaug.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/timeline/green.htm

The work of this revolutianary may not be appreciated till after his death, as often happens with great men. But the effects are real, without this mans great contribution to improving farming techniques, many many millions and perhaps billions would have starved. Thank you Dr. Borlaug

http://reason.com/0004/fe.rb.billions.shtml

 

Yeah, but in all of these countries you have to take into consideration factors such as politics--the government in China, for instance, was hopelessly screwed up, and many of the problems that they faced in terms of food supply was based on this, and not the fact that farmers theoretically could not produce enough. Also, with China being somewhat isolated due to its political bent, it could not readily import from the outside world, although it did when crops did fail.