Since genetic modification became possible, it's mostly been about resistance to diseases, insects and herbicides.

While that does increase yields, it hasn't been the direct aim. Borlaug soon saw why. The professor is featured in a new documentary about Borlaug, “The Man Who Tried To Feed The World,” which premiers tonight on PBS. Annual growth has fallen from its 1968 peak of 2.09% to 1.09% in 2018. VideoArctic Circle teens call for help to save their homes, .css-orcmk8-HeadlineContainer{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}France teacher attack: Four pupils held over beheading.css-1dedj2h-Rank{-webkit-align-self:center;-ms-flex-item-align:center;align-self:center;color:#B80000;margin-left:3.125rem;}1, Jeff Bridges: Oscar-winning US actor reveals he has lymphoma2, US election 2020: Trump and Biden feud over debate topics3, New name for a Canadian town called Asbestos4, Mysterious 'Robin Hood' hackers donating stolen money5, Bletchley Park’s contribution to WW2 'over-rated'6, US election 2020 polls: Who is ahead - Trump or Biden?7, Coronavirus: The place in North America with no cases8, US 2020 election: Who does China really want to win?9, Nasa's Osiris-Rex probe aims for daring 'high five' with asteroid Bennu10.

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But while population growth has slowed, the UN still predicts we'll add another few billion people before the century's end.

What Has COVID-19 Revealed About Our Public Health Systems? Closed Captioning. In Pakistan, the director of a research institute reported that they'd tried his wheat, but yields were poor. Mexican farmers were now getting more than three times that. She also drove him to the nearest town, Ciudad Obregón, where - 23 years later - the main street would be renamed in his honour: Calle de Dr Norman E Borlaug. Paul Ehrlich, now in his 80s, maintains that he wasn't so much wrong, as ahead of his time.

Tannbach in the 1960s. The man replied, perplexed: "This is the way you plant wheat in Pakistan.".

Sooner or later, he argued, there are bound to be more people than food, with unpleasant consequences. Plant breeder Norman Borlaug solves India's famine problem and leads a "Green Revolution" of agriculture programs around the world, saving 1 billion lives and winning a 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. It was painstaking work, but eventually it paid off. But first, we need you to sign in to PBS using one of the services below. But some argue those efforts came with unintended consequences.

| Closed CaptioningVideo has closed captioning. So when Cathy heard strange rumours about a young American man setting up camp in this dilapidated place - despite the lack of electricity, sanitation, or running water - she drove over to investigate. The Complicated Legacy Of The Man Who Tried To Feed The World.

But he was determined to tackle the scourge of hunger, something he had seen at first hand. There she found the Rockefeller Foundation's .css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link{color:#3F3F42;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{font-weight:bolder;border-bottom:1px solid #BABABA;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:focus,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:focus{border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:2px;color:#B80000;}@supports (text-underline-offset:0.25em){.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{border-bottom:none;-webkit-text-decoration:underline #BABABA;text-decoration:underline #BABABA;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-skip-ink:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;text-underline-offset:0.25em;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:focus,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:focus{-webkit-text-decoration-color:currentcolor;text-decoration-color:currentcolor;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:2px;text-decoration-thickness:2px;color:#B80000;}}Norman E Borlaug, who was trying to breed wheat which could resist stem rust, a disease that ruined many crops.

In India, he got into a yelling match with the deputy prime minister. Report a Problem | No, said an eminent academic. It's a question we may have to keep asking in the decades to come.

By the 1960s, Borlaug was travelling the world to spread the news. Agronomist Norman Borlaug led a “Green Revolution” of agriculture programs estimated to … For a while, the centre raised cattle, sheep and pigs, and grew oranges, figs and grapefruit. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.

Borlaug could be blunt with people who didn't get it, no matter who they were.

Ignoring his instructions, they'd planted too deep, too far apart, and without fertilizing or weeding.

And from 1960 to 2000, their wheat yields trebled. We can remove the first show in the list to add this one.

April 21, 2020.

Thank you for helping us improve PBS Video. By creating an account, you acknowledge that PBS may share your information with our member stations and our respective service providers, and that you have read and understand the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. The station was infested with rats. Thankfully, Ehrlich was wrong, because he didn't know what Norman Borlaug had been doing. Ehrlich had predicted mass starvation but the world's population more than doubled, and food production kept up. The Man Who Tried to Feed the World recounts the story of the man who would not only solve India’s famine problem, but would go on to lead a “Green Revolution” of … These are problems the green revolution itself has made worse. Further south, where he was supposed to be based, you had to sow in spring and harvest in autumn.

Perhaps if Malthus were still alive, in his 250s, he'd say the same. .css-8h1dth-Link{font-family:ReithSans,Helvetica,Arial,freesans,sans-serif;font-weight:700;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;color:#FFFFFF;}.css-8h1dth-Link:hover,.css-8h1dth-Link:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}Read about our approach to external linking. Problems Playing Video? But could more human ingenuity be the answer?

"It often appeared to me that I had made a dreadful mistake in accepting the position in Mexico," he confessed in the epilogue to his book, Norman Borlaug on World Hunger.

Some say it even perpetuated the poverty that keeps the population growing: fertilisers and irrigation cost money which many peasant farmers can't get. VideoThe woman who ferries Covid patients in a school bus, Large cat figure discovered in Peru's Nazca lines, The story of the blaze that destroyed Moria camp. By then she had a new neighbour: the Yaqui Valley Experiment Station, a grand agricultural research centre with impressive stone pillars, and cleverly designed irrigation canals.

That meant no machinery, and no help to make the place habitable. Here, he planned to exploit a different climate which would also let him sow in autumn and harvest in spring, and perhaps favour different varieties of wheat. We can remove the first video in the list to add this one. Corporate sponsorship for American Experience is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Consumer Cellular. Borlaug would later be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the years he had spent shuttling between Mexico City and the Yaqui Valley, growing thousands upon thousands of kinds of wheat, and carefully noting their traits: this kind resisted one type of stem rust, but not another; this kind produced good yields, but made bad bread; and so on. She Resisted explores the final decade of the women’s suffrage movement through its most powerful images, brought to life with color for the first time.

It was dubbed the "green revolution". But by 1945, the fields were overgrown, the fences fallen and the windows shattered.

Use one of the services below to sign in to PBS: You've just tried to add this video to My List. He couldn't sequence the wheat's DNA to figure out which genes caused which traits, because that technology was decades away.

Food production doesn't. But first, we need you to sign in to PBS using one of the services below. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy is broadcast on the BBC World Service.

Nick Cullather The latest updates in text and video as the US election enters its frantic final fortnight. The author writes the Financial Times's Undercover Economist column. But he could cross the varieties which had some good traits, and hope that one of the cross-breeds would happen to have all the good traits and none of the bad.

It is broadcast on the BBC World Service.

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world.

You've just tried to add this show to My List. © 2020 BBC. Eventually his haranguing worked.

Many couldn't conceive that a revolution was possible. For half a century, Pakistan's wheat yields had been consistent: never above 800lbs (360kg) an acre. It wasn't easy. .css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link{color:inherit;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:focus,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:focus{color:#B80000;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link::after,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited::after{content:'';position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;z-index:2;}Agriculture pioneer Borlaug dies, Genetically modified 'shortcut' boosts plant growth by 40%, World food security risks growing, Chatham House says, IR8: The miracle rice which saved millions of lives, Scientists hungry to deliver food system paradigm shift, US election: Microphones to be muted in debate.