00:00 Norman Borlaug is credited with saving the lives of over a billion people and won the Nobel Peace Prize, yet few know who he is.

01:42 Norman Borlog was born in Iowa in 1914 and despite being a good but not great student, he made the decision to get a college degree in the 1930s during the Great Depression.

02:40 Norman Borlog's career path shifted from forestry to plant pathology after attending a lecture on wheat rust, and he became interested in addressing agricultural issues such as the Dust Bowl.

03:36 Norman Borlog took on the role of director of a program in Mexico City, initially focused on transmitting modern farming techniques to Mexican farmers, but he expanded the program to develop new strains of crops, including improved dwarf wheat, which prioritized energy put into the grains rather than the stalks.

04:37 The semi-dwarf wheat developed in Mexico in the 1940s is now the majority of wheat grown worldwide, and its benefits include resistance to rust, ease of harvest, and increased fertility, leading to Mexico becoming self-sufficient in wheat production and a net exporter by 1956.

05:46 Norman Borlog led a convoy of trucks filled with seeds to India and Pakistan, resulting in a 70% increase in wheat production in the first year alone, leading to self-sufficiency in wheat for Pakistan by 1968 and self-sufficiency in all cereals for India by 1974, earning him the 1970 Nobel Prize for Peace and later bringing high-yield agricultural techniques to Africa.

06:53 Norman Borlog established the World Food Prize in 1987, which recognizes individuals who have improved the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world, and estimates of his efforts suggest he saved over 1 billion lives and preserved 1.2 billion hectares of land from conversion to agriculture.