Credit: iStockphoto
FRAIL AND ONLY DAYS before his 95th birthday, Borlaug's focus is unshakable. At the press conference, he hammered the need for better surveillance of stem rust.
Another journalist said to me, "I have never met anyone so 'on message'." It's very much part of the Borlaug style, his marriage of science and humanism. And it's a message that continues to inspire those around him.
"A lot of us who go into agriculture want to do something to help humanity. Borlaug is the giant that we hope to emulate," Steffenson told me as we bussed along the road lined by granaries and criss-crossed by massive semi-trailers carrying grain.
It's not just academics Borlaug has inspired. At the opening session of the conference, Theodore Crosbie, vice-president of Global Plant Breeding at Monsanto, the American multinational agricultural biotechnology giant, told delegates about meeting Borlaug 35 years ago. He was a student at Iowa State University, and Borlaug challenged him, "Why don't you work on something that matters?"
"One conversation with Borlaug and you're a changed man," says Crosbie. Decades later, Crosbie was clearly chuffed to announce at Obregón that Monsanto was awarding US$10 million over five years to researchers in developing countries to improve wheat and rice yields.
Borlaug's parting message to delegates was a refrain of his opening one: a plea for reviving the internationalism of agriculture. In his opening address, he recalled how years back, the farmers and scientists of the Yaqui Valley welcomed people of all languages, races and colours, as they came there to learn the ways of wheat. Faltering with emotion, he emphasised "that was the lesson they learned here".
One of those was Abdul Mujeeb Kazi, who became one of CIMMYT's most famous wheat breeders and is now a project director at the National Wheat Program in Islamabad, Pakistan.
At his parting speech Borlaug asked, "Why did it take so long [this time] to get good international co-operation?" Perhaps, as Kazi put it, "Ug99 may be a blessing in disguise – it has brought the international community together."
"Our tasks are enormous, but do-able," Borlaug said later. "So let's get on with the job. There is no room for complacency."
Elizabeth Finkel, a former biochemist, is a celebrated Melbourne-based science writer and a contributing editor of Cosmos. She has spent the past two years researching her new book, Gene World, to be published in 2010 by Melbourne University Publishing.
Black Harvest Report
Congratulations to Elizabeth Finkel for this report. I just StumbledUpon the article and it is the most interesting article that I have read in years.
Well Done.
George
Scary - and what about the economics of it all?
I would love to hear more about this scary issue, especially about the economic aspects. At first sight it sounds like only the big companies like Monsanto will be able to produce resistant wheats continually. They will probably patent all that - won't they? Isn't it ironic that our stock market driven greed in the north will not be able to protect us from possible starvation, but just helps the rust to grow stronger in the South and spread from there? Isn't it time that all this information becomes open source? Should we really keep on allowing patents on plants, genes etc?
Goetz
Public vs Private sector wheat improvement
Turns out that other than Western Europe and Australia, world wheat improvement (breeding, pathology, seed systems, etc.) is primarily in the hands of the public sector. Catalyzing synergies and focus within and among the enormous array of public sector science and technology capacities in wheat is largely what the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative is about. But Goetz is right to flag the risk of restrictions on use of valuable genetic resources, as IP encumbrances are as likely to emerge from the public sector as they are from the private.
Rick Ward, BGRI/Cornell
Excellent article
Great job Elizabeth Finkel, this was a great read. Until today I did not know Norman Borlaug played such a key role in solving the rust problems several decades ago. We can only hope someone is willing to put in the effort to carry on his work, whether its public or private. With current global grain reserves being so low, farmers holding off on using potash fertilizer because of high prices and less than ideal growing conditions this year for north american crops those reserves are shrinking rapidly on their own. I don't think the world can handle another grain shock due to wheat rust in the next 2 years. A grain crisis could be the next black swan.
sr31
This is a fantastic article which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. In lectures I prepared for my students last year, I concluded Ug99 is probably not a major threat to Australia, in the sense that sr31 and sr24 arn't widely used genes in our common varieties here. Lets hope so anyway.
Karen Barry, UTAS, Lecturer (Plant Pathology)
Park (2007) Stem rust of wheat in Australia. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research, 58: 558-566.