About Norman Borlaug

Norman Borlaug was educated and inspired while at the University of Minnesota. He was immersed in an atmosphere that fostered and demanded excellence. He was exposed to world-class faculty and alumni and made many lifelong friendships. His Minnesota connections and bonds often facilitated his seven-decade long endeavors to combat world hunger. Many University graduates followed him into international agriculture, and more than a dozen worked directly for him. He and his team of scientists and farmers are credited as being seminal in mankind’s greatest achievement in the age-old struggle against hunger—the ‘Green Revolution’.

Borlaug was many things; a plant pathologist/breeder, a teacher of scientists, a scientific collaborator and a team builder. His unique teaching and training methods for young scientists became part of the template for series of global crop improvement centers that undergird the world’s food supply to this day. Later in life he was a statesman, a vocal and tireless advocate for those who have no voice—the world’s rural poor. During his lifetime he received unprecedented numbers of honors, awards and accolades.

See below the University of Minnesota's tribute to Norman Borlaug (B.S. 1937, M.S. 1941, Ph.D. 1942) and his life's work to alleviate hunger and rural poverty.