Green Revolution & Foundations

The primary role that philanthropic foundations played in the beginning years of the green revolution are a wonderful story, and a bit of it is told in this profile of one of the founders of that revolution, Norman Borlaug, from the Philanthropy Roundtable.

An excerpt.

“Something has happened,” USAID administrator William Gaud marveled in 1968. “Pakistan is self-sufficient in wheat and rice, and India is moving towards it. It wasn’t a red, bloody revolution as predicted. It was a green revolution.”

“The phenomenon Gaud described was well known to his listeners, including Norman Borlaug, the Rockefeller Foundation agronomist who later recalled the conversation. Borlaug, who died on September 12, 2009, at the age of 95, was a principal leader of the Green Revolution. He is one of only six people to have won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Nobel Peace Prize. He is frequently credited with having saved one billion lives.

“The story of this “green revolution” is a story of foundation resources marshaled to tremendous effect. Indeed, it is one of the great success stories in philanthropic history. Because of visionary philanthropy, world food production has steadily outstripped global population growth, and the threat of mass starvation looms less heavily over the developing world.

“That success began in 1940, when Vice President–elect Henry Wallace traveled to Mexico. At the time, Mexico was forced to import over half its wheat and a significant portion of its maize. Appalled by the conditions he saw, Wallace met with Rockefeller Foundation officials, including the foundation’s president, Raymond Fosdick. Describing the plight of the Mexican poor, Wallace emphasized to Fosdick “that the all-important thing was to expand the means of subsistence.” For Rockefeller, hunger and malnutrition were tied closely to its longstanding efforts to combat disease among the poor. So, in 1943, the Rockefeller Foundation embarked with Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture on the Mexican Agricultural Project (MAP), starting with an outlay of $20,000 for a survey, followed in 1944 by a $192,800 initial grant. Led by George Harrar (later the foundation’s president), the group included Borlaug and four other agricultural specialists.

“Of them, it was Borlaug who would be credited as the movement’s hero. Born in 1914 in his grandfather’s farmhouse in northeastern Iowa, Borlaug initially studied forestry. Later, he switched to plant pathology at the urging of a mentor who later convinced him to join MAP. Borlaug established winter and summer operations in far-flung parts of Mexico, and he lived close to the land—fighting illness, floods, mudslides, and bad roads.”