Dr Norman Borlaug, who pioneered the development of high yielding, disease resistant cereal varieties in Latin America and Asia today received a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honour awarded in the USA.
Forty years ago some of the most vulnerable countries in the world faced famine. But Dr Borlaug's developments of better varieties and more sustainable farming systems enabled many of those countries to escape the worst of the disasters that faced them and to grow their own food. Continued scientific work since has led to a better fed world, on average, now than then.
Indeed, some might say Borlaug's methods and the extension of them led directly to the production of too much food and to embarrassing grain mountains in some areas of the world.
Now, however, the prospect of food shortages is looming again. There is growing competition for land to produce food, energy and to provide areas for conservation. Bigger yields, if it is possible to grow them, are becoming politically correct, indeed necessary, again. And I can't help wondering if todays Gold Medal presentation to Dr Borlaug, much deserved but very late in his long and distinguished career, might be tacit recognition of that revised, if not new priority.