Nobel laureate says food security far from won

Nobel Laureate Norman E. Borlaug, known to many as "the Father of the Green Revolution," warned at Kasetsart University in Thailand that despite the success Asian farmers have had in tripling cereal production since 1961, "the battle to ensure food security for hundreds of million miserably poor Asian people is far from won."

"Mushrooming populations and inadequate poverty intervention programs have eaten up many of the gains of the Green Revolution," Borlaug stressed during a presentation at the "Gene Technology Forum" organized by Kasetsart University. He said biotechnology could help mankind meet its future food and fiber needs in the coming centuries -- but only "if science is permitted to work as it should be."

"There seems to be a growing fear of science, per se, as the pace of technological change increases," Borlaug lamented. He criticized "misinformed environmentalists" in the more developed nations for creating a backlash against science, technology and industry.

"While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt elitist positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called 'natural' (nonbiotech) methods," he said, "the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low-income, food-deficit nations cannot...It is access to new technology that will be the salvation of the poor..."

Borlaug, who won the Nobel Prize in 1970, discussed the many challenges facing Asia's food supply in the next century, including a shrinking land base, increased urbanization leading to scarce agricultural labor, and changes in dietary patterns due to urbanization and higher incomes. Of particular concern to Borlaug was increased pressure on the world's limited accessible fresh water.