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motoboilast Sunday at 11:59 AM1 replyview on HN

Life in the field, from the land, in the past, meant death from starvation.

Some unsung heroes: - the person that discovered how to fix nitrogen in the soil saved more lives than every other people in history, combined. - Norman Borlaug, father of the green revolution, saved more than 1 billion people from starvation.


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mythrwylast Sunday at 2:30 PM

Borlaug was a very important figure in global food security but he was a plant breeder, not the guy(s) who figured out how to fix nitrogen from the air into fertilizer. Nitrogen people were Haber and Bosch.

Millions of probably do owe their very existence to these men though, agree with that.

However part of me (maybe a slightly misanthropic part?) wonders if it might be a bit like feeding stray cats, and now we have a huge herd of cats that are rapidly outstripping the ultimate carrying capacity of their environment and it doesn't end well. But since I'm one of the cats, I say we just go with it and see what happens.

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