I C A R D A    N e w s

INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN THE DRY AREAS

P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria
Phone: (963-21) 2213433, 2213477, 2225112, 2225012
Fax: (963-21) 2213490, 2225105;
E-mail: ICARDA@CGIAR.ORG
Website: www.icarda.cgiar.org
For more information contact: Dr Surendra Varma (s.varma@CGIAR.ORG)
 
 
2 June 2005
Dr Norman Borlaug Visits ICARDA
Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy (second from right), Director General, and Dr Robert Havener (right), former Chair, Board of Trustees of ICARDA, presented Dr Norman Borlaug (second from left), with a portrait of himself made with seeds of ICARDA's mandate crops. Standing on the left is Mr Christopher Dowswell, Director of Program Coordination, Sasakawa Africa Association.
Dr Norman E. Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and founder of the World Food Prize, visited ICARDA on 8-12 May 2005 to address the participants of the "CWANA Wheat Meeting" and review the wheat improvement research in the region.

Respected worldwide for the key role he played in bringing about the Green Revolution that saved millions of people from starvation especially in Asia, Dr Borlaug, 91, continues to pursue fighting hunger through scientific research as the leader of the Sasakawa Africa Association, working from his laboratories at CIMMYT in Mexico.

Welcoming Dr Borlaug to ICARDA, the Director General, Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy, said the Center was honored to host Dr Borlaug whose life has been dedicated to alleviating hunger and poverty. "This is a dream come true. We have been trying for years to have Dr Borlaug visit ICARDA," said Prof. Dr El-Beltagy. "His great sense of mission is that the world can be made a better place and peace can be achieved."
Dr Norman Borlaug delivering his lecture on 9 May at CWANA Wheat Meeting at ICARDA.

Dr Robert Havener, former Chair of ICARDA's Board of Trustees, introduced Dr Borlaug as a person who has had a career spanning 60 years in international agricultural development. "Starting from Mexico in 1944, Dr Borlaug started training young people from developing countries on crop improvement and developed a process by which improved seed of key crops could move around the world, which made a contribution to the Green Revolution," Dr Havener said.
Farmer Mr Saleh Al-Jaseem hugged Dr Norman Borlaug and thanked him for his contribution to the development of new wheat varieties, when Dr Borlaug visited his field near Aleppo Agricultural Research Center
Dr Borlaug thanked ICARDA for the work it has done to improve livelihoods in the dry areas. "I can see the tremendous impact that your research and extension has done to increase food production here in Syria and the neighboring countries," he said.

 On 9 May 2005, Dr Borlaug presented a lecture attended by the participants of the CWANA Wheat Meeting, scientists and farmer representatives who are members of the CWANA Wheat Network, and a large number of ICARDA scientists. In his presentation entitled "From the Green to the Gene Revolution: A 21st Century Challenge," Dr Borlaug talked about the history of the Cooperative Agricultural Program in Mexico and how it contributed to the Green Revolution, factors that made the Green Revolution a success, current constraints to food production, the need for a Marshall Plan for Sub-Saharan Africa, and the place of transgenics in contemporary agriculture.

He recounted how his early work with the Cooperative Agricultural Program (1943-1960), supported by the Government of Mexico and Rockefeller Foundation on maize and wheat improvement used the combination of research, extension and training to increase production of those crops. "This was the first attempt to help a food-deficit nation," Dr Borlaug said, adding that "we measured our progress by what happened on farmers' fields, not on the number of scientific learned reports."
Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy presented a historical picture to Dr Norman Borlaug and Dr Robert Havener taken in 1975, when both Dr Borlaug and Dr Havener visited Aleppo for selecting a site for ICARDA.
What led to broad adaptation of Mexican wheat was the use of a shuttle breeding program which involved growing alternate wheat generations between two distinctly different production environments each year, and advancing segregating breeding populations. "Shuttle breeding not only reduced the breeding period in half from ten years to four-and-a-half, but it also produced—combined with multi-location international testing—the broadly adapted Green Revolution wheats that were equally at home in Mexico as they were halfway round the world in Asia," he said.

 He attributed the success of the Green Revolution in Asia (especially China, India and Pakistan) to dynamic political leadership in those countries that provided a supportive policy environment, and to improved crop varieties, control of weeds and pests, soil and water management. Demonstrations conducted on many farmers' fields showed multiple yield increases which enabled political leaders to support the Green Revolution activities. "The political leaders had to be convinced by seeing demonstrations on many thousands of farms, knowing the acceptability and productive capacity of the cereals," he said. As a result of all the actions taken, cereal production in Asia increased from 309 million tons in 1961 to 962 million tons in 2000.

Mr Suleiman Tahhan (left), Head of Aleppo Syndicate of Engineers, and Mr Abelraz'zak Al-Khalaf (middle), head of Aleppo Farmers' Union, with Dr Norman Borlaug, Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy and Dr Robert Havener, after attending Dr Borlaug's lecture.
According to Dr Borlaug, the Mexican Government/Rockefeller Foundation program was the precursor to the CGIAR Centers, starting with the International Rice Research Institute in 1960 in the Philippines, and followed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico in 1966 and other centers later.

Turning to the contemporary challenges, Dr Borlaug said that the problem of hunger and malnutrition has not yet been solved, with an estimated 800 million people still going hungry. Noting the role of conflicts in enhancing hunger in the world, Dr Borlaug said "where there are no military conflicts we have not had massive or serious starvation." He challenged the current generation of researchers to work hard on improving crop varieties and agronomic technologies which will lead to increased food production. There will be a need to double the current food production to feed the global population in 2050.

Noting the limited potential for land expansion, except in the Americas and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, he said that 85% of future growth in food production must come from lands already in production. This will require more efficiency of irrigated agriculture and the use of zero tillage, among other actions. He said that zero-till farming and bed-planting reduces soil erosion; improves moisture conservation, and builds organic matter; saves labor, fuel and reduces turn-around time in multiple cropping systems; and bed-planting reduces fertilizer and irrigation requirements. He also called for a stronger focus on integrated soil health and soil fertility management. "In the future we need to have more investment in agronomy and soils," Dr Borlaug said.

On the challenges faced by the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa, Dr Borlaug expressed the concern that the continent faces the greatest misery. He called for a Marshall Plan to put into place the basic social and economic infrastructure needed to permit Africans produce sufficient food. "Africa has the potential to produce a lot of food, and maize is one of the very important basic food crops. But you can't eat potential. You've got to convert it to production and get it distributed into the empty stomachs," he said. He added that the major problems in Africa today are not the lack of agricultural technology but rather poor transportation infrastructure, lack of social services (education and health), and lack of adoption of productivity-enhancing technology. He called for increased use of chemical fertilizers as part of integrated soil fertility strategies, improved crop varieties, control of pests and water management. "Use all the organic fertilizers available but please don't come to the food deficit countries and tell them that they can meet their food needs using organic fertilizers alone," he cautioned.

Turning to the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), Dr Borlaug noted that biotechnology offers much promise to increase the dependability of yields, reduce production costs, and increase yields. He deplored the attacks against GMOs. "Farmers and scientists have been genetically modifying our crops. Mother Nature also has made 'GMOs' for millennia, adding whole sets of chromosomes consisting of thousands of genes. Take bread wheat, for example, which is a triple cross between three distinct grasses. Mother Nature made these crosses, adding whole sets of chromosomes (with thousands of genes) each time, to eventually create bread wheat, which can be used to produce a leavened loaf. And these were wide crosses. Most of them were sterile, but somehow, one or two were fertile, and from those came the modern wheat types. We need to bear this in mind in the biotechnology debate," he said.

He noted that there are many beneficial traits being developed through biotechnology. Herbicide resistance is revolutionizing soybean production in the USA and South America and is beginning to spread to other countries. This cuts cost of production, increases yield because of better weed control, and timely planting. Greater insect and disease resistance, tolerance to drought and cold temperatures, and improved nutritional quality are all in the research pipeline, he added.

He gave the example of the Bt cotton where biotechnologists have extracted a gene from a soil bacteria called Bt that confers excellent resistances to several classes of damaging insects. They have inserted Bt genes into cotton, as well as in maize and soybeans. "Some five million small-scale farmers in China, South Africa, and India are growing Bt cotton, greatly improving their yields and profitability, and significantly reducing their use of insecticides. The results in China are fantastic, with nearly 3 million hectares already planted." Dr Borlaug considers biotechnology as a new tool that is of great value, "and it can move genes across species and genera without sterility barriers."

After Dr Borlaug's lecture, Prof. Dr El-Beltagy presented him with a work of art created by an ICARDA staff member as a souvenir of his visit to the Center—a portrait of Dr Borlaug made with seeds of cereal and legume crops.

About ICARDA: Established in 1977, ICARDA (www.icarda.cgiar.org) serves the entire developing world for the improvement of barley, lentil, and faba bean; and dry-area developing countries for the on-farm management of water, improvement of nutrition and productivity of small ruminants (sheep and goats), and rehabilitation and management of rangelands. In the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region, ICARDA is responsible for the improvement of durum and bread wheats, chickpea, pasture and forage legumes and farming systems; and for the protection and enhancement of the natural resource base of water, land, and biodiversity.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) (www.cgiar.org) is a strategic alliance of countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations supporting15 international research centers that mobilizes cutting-edge science to promote sustainable development by reducing hunger and poverty, improving human nutrition and health, and protecting the environment.
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