Perhaps it is because Borlaug's seminal accomplishments were made in what now seems like another era. Or because the Green Revolution has come under fire from environmentalists for its supposed dependence on chemical inputs. Or perhaps because Borlaug's achievements have removed the subject of mass starvation as an immediate threat, and with it, agriculture as a compelling problem.

Although the world seems to have forgotten Borlaug, this 83-year-old native of the U.S. state of Iowa remains on the front lines, teaching, fighting hunger, and dispensing pragmatic and occasionally iconoclastic advice to policymakers. He now spends much of his time in Africa, where he sees the biggest potential for improvement. But he continues to follow developments in Latin America, where he spent much of his career as a scientist at the IDB-supported International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center near Mexico City.

In a recent interview in Washington, D.C., Borlaug showed his pragmatic views of the rural life. There is nothing romantic, he said, in "too many people trying to make a living off of land that is not suitable." Poor, thin soils and broken terrain that cannot be mechanized condemn millions to poverty.

Part of the solution lies with the cities and their ability to create jobs to draw immigrants from the countryside. For the people who remain on the land, technology can ensure that "we don't condemn those one-hectare farms to misery in perpetuity," Borlaug said.

Borlaug is not talking about developing new technology. With off-the-shelf techniques, fertilizer and better seed, "there would be no problem in doubling, tripling, quadrupling production, he said. The challenge is getting this technology into the hands of the farmers.

"We don't like to talk about subsidies and tax transfers," he said, "but small farmers must have the right inputs when they need them. The government has to intervene in the credit system to enable them to buy technology, and the parastatals must play a part in the supply."

Unlike their large-scale counterparts, small farmers need the government to be the intermediary to technology. "If we don't get technology to them, we will have social chaos, and this would not be good for the small farmer, the big farmer or the urban consumer," he said.

Despite these problems, Borlaug points to spectacular successes in Latin American agriculture. In particular, he pronounces himself "fascinated" by the transformation of Brazil's cerrado into one of the world's great producers of soybeans, corn, rice and other crops.

A region of very acidic soils with a high aluminum content and low nutrients, the cerrado was left on the margins of agriculture. Then researchers, including some with the IDB-supported Brazilian agency EMBRAPA, bred aluminum-resistant varieties of soybeans and rice. The roots of the new varieties were able to penetrate deep into the soil, where applications of lime could not reach. When the roots decomposed, they improved the soils.

Through the successful application of this new technology, 10 million hectares of cerrado have been put into production and Brazil has emerged as the world's second largest producer of soybeans.

"I never thought it could happen," said Borlaug.

--the editor