Sharad Pawar, India’s Minister of Agriculture, and Jeanie Laube Borlaug, daughter of the late Norman E. Borlaug, unveiled a statute of Borlaug at the National Agricultural Science Complex in New Delhi on August 19, 2013.
The CIMMYT-commissioned statute was donated to the people and scientists of India as a gift to mark 50 years of partnership. Borlaug introduced his new wheat varieties in India in 1963. The statue leaves a permanent reminder of Borlaug’s achievements and a legacy for the future. The statue was created by Katharine McDevitt, Professor of sculpture at the Universidad Autonoma Chapingo (Chapingo Autonomous Unviersity) in Mexico. It is the oldest agricultural university in the Americas and is also where Borlaug started his research in Mexico in 1944, sleeping on the floor of a university barn. The Borlaug satute holds a book inscribed with the names of some of the leading visionaries who worked with him during the Green Revolution: M.S.Swaminathan, C.Subramaniam, B.Sivaraman, A.B.Joshi, S.P.Kohli, Glenn Anderson, M.V.Rao and V.S.Mathur. It also contains a list in Latin and Hindi scripts of the original Mexican wheat varieties that were so productive in India. Speaking at the event, Thomas A. Lumpkin, Director General of both CIMMYT and the Borlaug Institute for South Asia, said, “In his vigorous support for an agricultural revolution in South Asia and his passion for understanding their circumstances, Norm won the hearts of Indian farmers and helped deliver 50 years of food security to the region. The National Agricultural Science Complex, where Norm spent a lot of his time in India, is a fitting place for this statue, and hopefully it will inspire a new generation of scientists to conquer the great new challenges facing the country and the region.”