Controversy: Willing to Confront Tough Issues
The Population Bomb
"The battle to feed all of humanity is over... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now...I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971... India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980." -Paul Ehrlich, "The Population Bomb" (1968)
Professor Paul Ehrlich published the book in 1968 called "The Population Bomb" which warned people about starvation in the next 10 years due to overpopulation. He claimed that it was not possible for India to be self-sufficient. However, Norman Borlaug proved him wrong when India became self-sufficient by 1971.
Other Criticisms
"They have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists in wealthy nations were trying to deny them these things."-Norman Borlaug
"Few people at the time considered the profound social and ecological changes that the revolution heralded among peasant farmers."- Vandana Shiva (environmental activist and anti-globalization author)
The Green Revolution was also criticized as many people believed that pesticides and fertilizers were bad for the environment because they would pollute the soil, rivers, and other water supplies. Also, environmentalists believed that Norman Borlaug's techniques lacked biodiversity. His techniques required plowing techniques such as tractors, using fertilizers and pesticides, irrigation plants, which require large amount of capital. In effect, the food production is in the hands of big corporations taking away from subsistence families. But Borlaug responded that it was necessary to take these initiatives to prevent hunger and starvation and was indignant towards the lobbyists.
"Clearly the Green Revolution was not without problems, some of that did lead to indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides leading to environmental problems, but it is absurd to say that we have far more problems than before." -C.S. Prakash (professor of plant genetics at Tuskegee University)