September 14, 2009· Father of the Green Revolution dies at 95 · Documentary looks at plight of the honeybee · Drought? Calif. tomato crop exceeds last year · Not wine, but rubber from Russian dandelion · Deal will facilitate new algae extraction process Father of the Green Revolution dies at 95(AP via Yahoo! New) – Borlaug, 95, died Saturday from complications of cancer at
his "Norman E. Borlaug saved more lives than any man in human history," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program. "His heart was as big as his brilliant mind, but it was his passion and compassion that moved the world." He was known as the father of the "green revolution," which transformed agriculture through high-yield crop varieties and other innovations, helping to more than double world food production between 1960 and 1990. Many experts credit the green revolution with averting global famine during the second half of the 20th century and saving perhaps 1 billion lives. "He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than anybody that has done that much," said Dr. Ed Runge, retired head of Texas A&M University's Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and a close friend who persuaded Borlaug teach at the school. "He made the world a better place — a much better place." Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called Borlaug "simply one of the world's best. A determined, dedicated, but humble man who believed we had the collective duty and knowledge to eradicate hunger worldwide." Borlaug began the work that led to his Nobel in He and others later took those varieties and similarly
improved strains of rice and corn to Asia, the Middle East, South America and His successes in the 1960s came just as experts warned that mass starvation was inevitable as the world's population boomed. "More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to provide bread for a hungry world," Nobel Peace Prize committee chairman Aase Lionaes said in presenting the award to Borlaug in 1970. "We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace." But Borlaug and the Green Revolution were also criticized in later decades for promoting practices that used fertilizer and pesticides, and focusing on a few high-yield crops that benefited large landowners. Borlaug often said wheat was only a vehicle for his real interest, which was to improve people's lives. "We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life," he said in his Nobel acceptance speech. "For a decent and humane life we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing and effective and compassionate medical care." Borlaug also pressed governments for farmer-friendly economic policies and improved infrastructure to make markets accessible. A 2006 book about Borlaug is titled "The Man Who Fed the World." Norman Ernest Borlaug was born March 25, 1914, on a farm
near He left home during the Great Depression to study forestry
at the After a brief stint with the U.S. Forest Service, Norman
Borlaug returned to the In 1963, Borlaug was named head of the newly formed International
Maize and Borlaug retired as head of the center in 1979 and turned to
university teaching, first at He remained active well into his 90s, campaigning for the
use of biotechnology to fight hunger. He also helped found and served as
president of the Sasakawa Africa Foundation, an
organization funded by Japanese billionaire Ryoichi Sasakawa
to introduce the green revolution to sub-Saharan In 1986, Borlaug established the Des Moines, Iowa-based World Food Prize, a $250,000 award given each year to a person whose work improves the world's food supply. He received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor given by Congress, in 2007. He is survived by daughter Jeanie Borlaug Laube and her husband Rex; son William Gibson Borlaug and his wife Barbie; five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Documentary looks at plight of the honeybee(CNN) -- "The Last Beekeeper" will change the way you see honeybees. You may find yourself rescuing a tiny bee you see struggling in a puddle of water. Instead of fearing its sting, you may think about the role honeybees play in putting food on your table. The documentary, which premiered Saturday on the cable channel Planet Green, explores the "intimate relationship" between humans and bees through the eyes of three struggling American beekeepers. "You suddenly realize that even though they look like insects, when you really look at them they take on these personalities," said producer Fenton Bailey. Apiarists -- the professional title for bee scientists -- estimate that one out of every three bites of food you eat is directly or indirectly pollinated by honeybees. Alarming headlines two years ago about the mysterious
disappearance of honeybees prompted filmmakers to follow beekeepers from Director Jeremy Simmons said they wanted to show "more than what was in the paper" about the mystery. "There is a really powerful connection between a human being and a bee because we've tended bees for thousand of years," Bailey said. "It's such an old tradition and bees are incredibly sophisticated, evolved creatures." The cameras rolled as these beekeepers faced "colony
collapse disorder," a still unexplained phenomenon which scientists
estimate has wiped out almost a third of the domestic honeybee hives in the Nomadic beekeepers truck their bee colonies across the country, following the pollination seasons for almonds, apples, cotton and other crops dependent on their insects. Nicole Ulibarri, who inherited her
father's "You can have a high this month and all of the sudden you can run into something, and the bees start starving to death," Ulibarri said. Bees are loaded on trucks in January for a cross-country
ride to "It's like putting you on a strict diet and that's all I feed you for the next month," she said. "And I pick you up and I shake your house and I take you down the road, which is pretty stressful, and then I move you to a new location, and, guess what, for the next six weeks, now, I've changed your temperature and now I'm only going to give you watermelon. You get sick." The travel also exposes the bees to a variety of pesticides, adding to their stress, she said. And mites, believed to have been brought in by bees that were imported to replace lost hives, are also a problem, she said. The film does not offer an answer to what's killing the honeybees. But Ulibarri said researchers are "getting real close" to identifying a virus as the main culprit. In one poignant moment in the documentary, the cameras capture one of the beekeepers breaking down in tears after lying to his wife to hide the fact that he lost most of his bees. "It's a tragedy, that silent moment in the bee yard when you realize you are surrounded by death," Simmons said. "It's a very powerful, very sad moment." Along with the loss of their livestock, American beekeepers
face tough competition from less expensive imported honey -- especially from She planned to sell her bees after last year's disappointing year, but the prices being offered for them was "literally nothing." But this year has been better, with fewer lost colonies, she said. "Bees really become a part of us, we learn so much all the time," she said. "One really neat thing, when you're around enough hives, as soon as you open it, you can hear from the energy of the hive how they are doing. They are the voice of mother nature." Drought?
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