In a unique meeting, wheat scientists from across the world will congregate in New Delhi during August to commemorate 50 years of Norman E. Borlaug’s contributions to India’s Green Revolution and honour his legacy.
Making this possible will be the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The apex agri research body will host the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) Technical Workshop during August 19-22.
President Pranab Mukherjee will inaugurate the meeting at Vigyan Bhavan on August 19. It will feature some Indian farmers who worked with Borlaug in the 1960s.
“Norman Borlaug made India self-sufficient in wheat production,” said Kannan Vijayaraghavan, Director of Sathguru Management Consultants, South Asia Coordinator for BGRI.
In the 50 years since Borlaug first came to India in 1963, India went from near starvation, producing less than 10 million tonnes of wheat a year, to record production in 2012 of more than 93 mt, he told newspersons on Wednesday.
The BGRI was launched in 2005 by the Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug. Borlaug received the Nobel prize in 1970 for fighting stem rust and developing varieties of semi-dwarfing wheat that saved millions of South Asians from famine. He died in 2009.
The BGRI is chaired by Borlaug’s daughter Jeanie Borlaug Laube.
Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Department for International Development (DFID) in the United Kingdom, the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat Project, which acts as the secretariat for the BGRI, is managed by Cornell University.