Panelist 



Norman E. Borlaug 



Plant Geneticist and Nobel Laureate 

 Mexico City, Mexico 



G< 



overnor Schwinden, honorable governors of 

 Western states, distinguished guests, ladies and gen- 

 tlemen It is a privilege and honor for me to be here. 

 Seldom do I get an opportunity to participate in this 

 kind of conference, but I have had many opportunities 

 during the last 30 years to participate with political 

 leaders as they relate to their own national and state 

 agricultural problems 



In order to give you a little feel of what makes me 

 tick, I grew up on a very small farm I had a broad, 

 general farm background. I studied forestry and was 

 interested in the broader use of land I spent two 

 assignments in Middlefork on a forest that has long 

 since disappeared, the Idaho National. There I 

 learned to know myself. I also got a feel, subse- 

 quently, for some of the big problems in the world. 

 After I was released from War Manpower and after a 

 brief stay in the chemical industry, which I joined 

 shortly before Pearl Harbor, I took an assignment, the 

 firstborn technical assistance program, at the invitation 

 of the Government of fvlexico in a program financed 

 and coordinated by the Rockefeller Foundation. In 

 one way or another, I have been associated with that 

 program and its successors in many different parts of 

 the world for 38 years. 



So, I was impressed very greatly last night by Dr. 

 Fullerton's and Dr. Hutchinson's descriptions of what 

 the world looks like from space, especially by the 

 remark that Colonel Fullerton made that when they 

 flew over the U.S. A they could see many of the modi- 

 fications that had been made here through roads and 

 large cities and what not, but when they flew over 

 India, they saw no real evidence of its 650 million 

 people. 



I would like to add that you could not see from 

 above, either, the vast misery and hunger of that 

 nation and many other nations. I will try to weave this 

 into the story that I am going to try to paint for you. I 

 think it is important for you governors, as well as for 

 all of our political leaders and agricultural leaders, to 

 understand the problems, strife and struggle of the 

 developing nations, not only to anticipate the growing 

 demands for food, but also how this fits into world 

 political stability or instability. 



Now, let me start out by saying that you know in 

 our very affluent, privileged USA., a lot of our people 

 have forgotten where food comes from 



Again, our friends Fullerton and Hutchinson, men- 

 tioned that you see these vast expanses of water and 

 ocean and yet, tonnage wise, all of that vast area 

 only produces 2 percent of the total tonnage of our 

 annual food supply. So, 98 percent comes from the 

 land, and only a trace — at this time — of our food 

 and feed comes from industrial fermentation done 

 either by bacteria or yeast There are those who are 

 very optimistic that this will grow rapidly in the future. 

 I hope it does, but I am not very optimistic that this 

 development will take place very fast. 



For those governors who have vast forest areas in 

 the West, I am also of the belief that within the next 

 several decades we will use our forests much more 

 for industrial raw materials that we know about today, 

 but which, costwise, are unprofitable to employ. 



What are the kinds of foods? It is a very complex 

 world system. There are different preferences, differ- 

 ent places, and also the kinds that are consumed are 

 in a large part affected by income, availability of food 

 in broad categories, though the cereal grains are by 



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