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Agricultural scientist wins Congress honor

Norman Borlaug helped develop wheat varieties that alleviated hunger worldwide.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 18, 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush presented the Congressional Gold Medal on Tuesday to agriculture scientist Norman Borlaug, whose work on high-yield, disease-resistant varieties of wheat is credited with starting the "Green Revolution" and alleviating starvation in India and Pakistan in the 1960s.

"The most fitting tribute we can offer this good man is to renew ourselves to his life's work, and lead a second Green Revolution that feeds the world, and today we'll make a pledge to do so," Bush said at the ceremony.

Borlaug, whose work is credited with saving up to a billion lives, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. In 1986 Borlaug founded the World Food Prize, an annual $250,000 award to people whose work increases the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world.

"The name Norman Borlaug may not be known in many households on Earth, but his life's work has reached almost every kitchen table on Earth," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Borlaug, 93, used Tuesday's ceremony to say that hunger remains a problem with the rapid rise in the world's population.

In addition to Tuesday's award and his Nobel Prize, Borlaug received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and becomes only the fifth person to be awarded all three honors. The others are Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and Nelson Mandela.

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honor that Congress awards. George Washington was the first to receive the medal in 1776. Other winners include Thomas Edison, Bob Hope and Pope John Paul II.

Information from the Des Moines Register was used in this report.

[Last modified July 18, 2007, 01:47:13]