Thanks to Sandy at Junkfood Science for introducing me to Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug at his passing from this world. He lived an inspiring and humanitarian life in the field of agriculture, with which I feel a fundamental connection because my father was a farmer, another one who worked hard out of love. These pictures are of the fruits of his labors, and of the road we lived on in California’s Central Valley for most of my childhood.

All of us should feel that link, because we depend so critically on those who grow our food, but in these days when the percentage of the population devoted to agriculture is shrinking, I’m afraid the portion who never think of the farmers is on the rise.

While you are on that website, check out her many other articles on a broad range of topics about which she does the research and lets her readers in on the stories behind the often-misleading headlines.