Borlaug remained an unapologetic advocate for industrial agriculture, as shown in this 2000 interview, making a point that is often neglected in discussions of the environmental impact of organic compared to high-tech agriculture:
Reason: Environmentalists say agricultural biotech will harm biodiversity.
Borlaug: I don’t believe that. If we grow our food and fiber on the land best suited to farming with the technology that we have and what’s coming, including proper use of genetic engineering and biotechnology, we will leave untouched vast tracts of land, with all of their plant and animal diversity. It is because we use farmland so effectively now that President Clinton was recently able to set aside another 50 or 60 million acres of land as wilderness areas. That would not have been possible had it not been for the efficiency of modern agriculture.
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