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Norman Borlaug

Norman Ernest Borlaug (March 25, 1914 – September 12, 2009) was an American agronomist who led initiatives worldwide that contributed to the extensive increases in agricultural production termed the Green Revolution. Borlaug was awarded multiple honors for his work, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, one of only seven people to have received all three awards.

Borlaug received his B.S. in forestry in 1937 and PhD in plant pathology and genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1942. He took up an agricultural research position with CIMMYT in Mexico, where he developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties. During the mid-20th century, Borlaug led the introduction of these high-yielding varieties combined with modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan, and India. As a result, Mexico became a net exporter of wheat by 1963. Between 1965 and 1970, wheat yields nearly doubled in Pakistan and India, greatly improving the food security in those nations.

Borlaug was often called "the father of the Green Revolution", and is credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation. According to Jan Douglas, executive assistant to the president of the World Food Prize Foundation, the source of this number is Gregg Easterbrook's 1997 article "Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity." The article states that the "form of agriculture that Borlaug preaches may have prevented a billion deaths." Dennis T. Avery also estimated that the number of lives saved by Borlaug's efforts to be one billion. In 2009, Josette Sheeran, then the Executive Director of the World Food Programme, stated that Borlaug "saved more lives than any man in human history". He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his contributions to world peace through increasing food supply.

Later in his life, he helped apply these methods of increasing food production in Asia and Africa. He was also an accomplished wrestler in college and a pioneer of wrestling in the United States, being inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for his contributions.

Early life, education, and family
Borlaug was the great-grandchild of Norwegian immigrants to the United States. Ole Olson Dybevig and Solveig Thomasdatter Rinde, of Feios, a small village in Vik kommune, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway, emigrated to Dane County, Wisconsin, in 1854. The family eventually moved to the small Norwegian-American community of Saude, near Cresco, Iowa. There they were members of Saude Lutheran Church, where Norman was baptized and confirmed.

Borlaug was born to Henry Oliver (1889–1971) and Clara (Vaala) Borlaug (1888–1972) on his grandparents' farm in Saude in 1914, the first of four children. His three sisters were Palma Lillian (Behrens; 1916–2004), Charlotte (Culbert; 1919–2012) and Helen (b. d. 1921). From age seven to nineteen, he worked on the 106 acre family farm west of Protivin, fishing, hunting, and raising corn, oats, timothy-grass, cattle, pigs and chickens. He attended the one-teacher, one-room New Oregon #8 rural school in Howard County through eighth grade. Today, the school building, built in 1865, is owned by the Norman Borlaug Heritage Foundation as part of "Project Borlaug Legacy". At Cresco High School, Borlaug was a member of the football, baseball and wrestling teams; his wrestling coach, Dave Barthelma, continually encouraged him to "give 105%".

Borlaug attributed his decision to leave the farm and pursue further education to his grandfather's urgent encouragement to learn: Nels Olson Borlaug (1859–1935) once told him, "you're wiser to fill your head now if you want to fill your belly later on." When Borlaug applied for admission to the University of Minnesota in 1933, he failed its entrance exam, but was accepted at the school's newly created two-year General College. After two quarters, he transferred to the College of Agriculture's forestry program. As a member of the University of Minnesota men's wrestling team, Borlaug reached the Big Ten semifinals, and promoted the sport to Minnesota high schools in exhibition matches all around the state:

"Wrestling taught me some valuable lessons ... I always figured I could hold my own against the best in the world. It made me tough. Many times, I drew on that strength. It's an inappropriate crutch perhaps, but that's the way I'm made."

To finance his studies, Borlaug put his education on hold periodically to earn some income, as he did in 1935 as a leader in the Civilian Conservation Corps, working with the unemployed on federal projects. Many of the people who worked for him were starving. He later recalled, "I saw how food changed them. All of this left scars on me". From 1935 to 1938, before and after receiving his Bachelor of Science in forestry in 1937, Borlaug worked for the United States Forest Service at stations in Massachusetts and Idaho. He spent one summer in the middle fork of Idaho's Salmon River, the most isolated piece of wilderness in the nation at that time.

In the last months of his undergraduate education, Borlaug attended a Sigma Xi lecture by Elvin Charles Stakman, a professor and soon-to-be head of the plant pathology group at the University of Minnesota. The event was a pivot for Borlaug's future. Stakman, in his speech entitled "These Shifty Little Enemies that Destroy our Food Crops", discussed the manifestation of the plant disease rust, a parasitic fungus that feeds on phytonutrients in wheat, oats, and barley crops. Stakman had discovered that special plant breeding methods produced plants resistant to rust. His research greatly interested Borlaug, and when Borlaug's job at the Forest Service was eliminated because of budget cuts, he asked Stakman if he should go into forest pathology. Stakman advised him to focus on plant pathology instead. He subsequently enrolled at the university to study plant pathology under Stakman. Borlaug earned a Master of Science degree in 1940, and a Ph.D. in plant pathology and genetics in 1942.

Borlaug was a member of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity. While in college, he met his future wife, Margaret Gibson, as he waited tables at a coffee shop in the university's Dinkytown, where the two worked. They were married in 1937 and had three children, Norma Jean "Jeanie" Laube, Scotty (who died from spina bifida soon after birth), and William; five grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. On March 8, 2007, Margaret Borlaug died at the age of 95 following a fall. They had been married for 69 years. Borlaug resided in Dallas the last years of his life, although his global humanitarian efforts left him with only a few weeks of the year to spend there.

Career
From 1942 to 1944, Borlaug was employed as a microbiologist at DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware. It was planned that he would lead research on industrial and agricultural bacteriocides, fungicides, and preservatives. However, following the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor Borlaug tried to enlist in the military, but was rejected under wartime labor regulations; his lab was converted to conduct research for the United States armed forces. One of his first projects was to develop glue that could withstand the warm salt water of the South Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy had gained control of the island of Guadalcanal, and patrolled the sky and sea by day. The only way for U.S. forces to supply the troops stranded on the island was to approach at night by speedboat, and jettison boxes of canned food and other supplies into the surf to wash ashore. The problem was that the glue holding these containers together disintegrated in saltwater. Within weeks, Borlaug and his colleagues had developed an adhesive that resisted corrosion, allowing food and supplies to reach the stranded Marines. Other tasks included work with camouflage, canteen disinfectants, DDT to control malaria, and insulation for small electronics.

In 1940, the Avila Camacho administration took office in Mexico. The administration's primary goal for Mexican agriculture was augmenting the nation's industrialization and economic growth. U.S. Vice President-Elect Henry Wallace, who was instrumental in persuading the Rockefeller Foundation to work with the Mexican government in agricultural development, saw Avila Camacho's ambitions as beneficial to U.S. economic and military interests. The Rockefeller Foundation contacted E.C. Stakman and two other leading agronomists. They developed a proposal for a new organization, the Office of Special Studies, as part of the Mexican Government, but directed by the Rockefeller Foundation. It was to be staffed with both Mexican and US scientists, focusing on soil development, maize and wheat production, and plant pathology.

Stakman chose Dr. Jacob George "Dutch" Harrar as project leader. Harrar immediately set out to hire Borlaug as head of the newly established Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program in Mexico; Borlaug declined, choosing to finish his war service at DuPont. In July 1944, after rejecting DuPont's offer to double his salary, and temporarily leaving behind his pregnant wife and 14-month-old daughter, he flew to Mexico City to head the new program as a geneticist and plant pathologist.

In 1964, Borlaug was made the director of the International Wheat Improvement Program at El Batán, Texcoco, on the eastern fringes of Mexico City, as part of the newly established Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research's International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo, or CIMMYT). Funding for this autonomous international research training institute developed from the Cooperative Wheat Research Production Program was undertaken jointly by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the Mexican government.

Besides his work in genetic resistance against crop loss, Borlaug felt that pesticides including DDT had more benefits than drawbacks for humanity and advocated publicly for their continued use. He continued to support pesticide use despite the severe public criticism he received for it. Borlaug mostly admired the work and personality of Rachel Carson but lamented her Silent Spring, what he saw as an inaccurate portrayal of the effects of DDT.

Borlaug retired officially from the position in 1979, but remained a CIMMYT senior consultant. In addition to taking up charitable and educational roles, he continued to be involved in plant research at CIMMYT with wheat, triticale, barley, maize, and high-altitude sorghum.

In 1981, Borlaug became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.

In 1984, Borlaug began teaching and conducting research at Texas A&M University. Eventually he was given the title Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture at the university and the holder of the Eugene Butler Endowed Chair in Agricultural Biotechnology.

He advocated for agricultural biotechnology as he had for pesticides in earlier decades: publicly, knowledgeably, and always despite heavy criticism.

Borlaug served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, University of Iowa, Cornell University, and Texas A&M University. Borlaug remained at A&M until his death in September 2009.

Wheat research in Mexico
The Cooperative Wheat Research Production Program, a joint venture by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, involved research in genetics, plant breeding, plant pathology, entomology, agronomy, soil science, and cereal technology. The goal of the project was to boost wheat production in Mexico, which at the time was importing a large portion of its grain. Plant pathologist George Harrar recruited and assembled the wheat research team in late 1944. The four other members were soil scientist William Colwell; maize breeder Edward Wellhausen; potato breeder John Niederhauser; and Norman Borlaug, all from the United States. During the sixteen years Borlaug remained with the project, he bred a series of remarkably successful high-yield, disease-resistant, semi-dwarf wheat.

Borlaug said that his first few years in Mexico were difficult. He lacked trained scientists and equipment. Local farmers were hostile towards the wheat program because of serious crop losses from 1939 to 1941 due to stem rust. "It often appeared to me that I had made a dreadful mistake in accepting the position in Mexico," he wrote in the epilogue to his book, Norman Borlaug on World Hunger. He spent the first ten years breeding wheat cultivars resistant to disease, including rust. In that time, his group made 6,000 individual crossings of wheat.

Double harvest season
Initially, Borlaug's work had been concentrated in the central highlands, in the village of Chapingo near Texcoco, where the problems with rust and poor soil were most prevalent. The village never met their aims. He realized that he could speed up breeding by taking advantage of the country's two growing seasons. In the summer he would breed wheat in the central highlands as usual, then immediately take the seeds north to the Valle del Yaqui research station near Ciudad Obregón, Sonora. The difference in altitudes and temperatures would allow more crops to be grown each year.

Borlaug's boss, George Harrar, was against this expansion. Besides the extra costs of doubling the work, Borlaug's plan went against a then-held principle of agronomy that has since been disproved. It was believed that to store energy for germination before being planted, seeds needed a rest period after harvesting. When Harrar vetoed his plan, Borlaug resigned. Elvin Stakman, who was visiting the project, calmed the situation, talking Borlaug into withdrawing his resignation and Harrar into allowing the double wheat season. As of 1945, wheat would then be bred at locations 700 miles (1000 km) apart, 10 degrees apart in latitude, and 8,500 feet (2600 m) apart in altitude. This was called "shuttle breeding".

As an unexpected benefit of the double wheat season, the new breeds did not have problems with photoperiodism. Normally, wheat varieties cannot adapt to new environments, due to the changing periods of sunlight. Borlaug later recalled, "As it worked out, in the north, we were planting when the days were getting shorter, at low elevation and high temperature. Then we'd take the seed from the best plants south and plant it at high elevation, when days were getting longer and there was lots of rain. Soon we had varieties that fit the whole range of conditions. That wasn't supposed to happen by the books". This meant that the project would not need to start separate breeding programs for each geographic region of the planet.

Disease resistance through varieties of wheat
Because purebred (genotypically identical) plant varieties often only have one or a few major genes for disease resistance, and plant diseases such as rust are continuously producing new races that can overcome a pure line's resistance, multiple linear lines varieties were developed. Multiline varieties are mixtures of several phenotypically similar pure lines which each have different genes for disease resistance. By having similar heights, flowering and maturity dates, seed colors, and agronomic characteristics, they remain compatible with each other, and do not reduce yields when grown together on the field.

In 1953, Borlaug extended this technique by suggesting that several pure lines with different resistance genes should be developed through backcross methods using one recurrent parent. Backcrossing involves crossing a hybrid and subsequent generations with a recurrent parent. As a result, the genotype of the backcrossed progeny becomes increasingly similar to that of the recurrent parent. Borlaug's method would allow the various different disease-resistant genes from several donor parents to be transferred into a single recurrent parent. To make sure each line has different resistant genes, each donor parent is used in a separate backcross program. Between five and ten of these lines may then be mixed depending upon the races of pathogen present in the region. As this process is repeated, some lines will become susceptible to the pathogen. These lines can easily be replaced with new resistant lines.

As new sources of resistance become available, new lines are developed. In this way, the loss of crops is kept to a minimum, because only one or a few lines become susceptible to a pathogen within a given season, and all other crops are unaffected by the disease. Because the disease would spread more slowly than if the entire population were susceptible, this also reduces the damage to susceptible lines. There is still the possibility that a new race of pathogen will develop to which all lines are susceptible, however.

Dwarfing
Dwarfing is an important agronomic quality for wheat; dwarf plants produce thick stems. The cultivars Borlaug worked with had tall, thin stalks. Taller wheat grasses better compete for sunlight but tend to collapse under the weight of the extra grain—a trait called lodging—from the rapid growth spurts induced by nitrogen fertilizer Borlaug used in the poor soil. To prevent this, he bred wheat to favor shorter, stronger stalks that could better support larger seed heads. In 1953, he acquired a Japanese dwarf variety of wheat called Norin 10 developed by the agronomist Gonjiro Inazuka in Iwate Prefecture, including ones which had been crossed with a high-yielding American cultivar called Brevor 14 by Orville Vogel. Norin 10/Brevor 14 is semi-dwarf (one-half to two-thirds the height of standard varieties) and produces more stalks and thus more heads of grain per plant. Also, larger amounts of assimilate were partitioned into the actual grains, further increasing the yield. Borlaug crossbred the semi-dwarf Norin 10/Brevor 14 cultivar with his disease-resistant cultivars to produce wheat varieties that were adapted to tropical and sub-tropical climates.

Borlaug's new semi-dwarf, disease-resistant varieties, called Pitic 62 and Penjamo 62, changed the potential yield of spring wheat dramatically. By 1963, 95% of Mexico's wheat crops used the semi-dwarf varieties developed by Borlaug. That year, the harvest was six times larger than in 1944, the year Borlaug arrived in Mexico. Mexico had become fully self-sufficient in wheat production, and a net exporter of wheat. Four other high-yield varieties were also released, in 1964: Lerma Rojo 64, Siete Cerros, Sonora 64, and Super X.

Expansion to South Asia: the Green Revolution

In 1961 to 1962, Borlaug's dwarf spring wheat strains were sent for multilocation testing in the International Wheat Rust Nursery, organized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In March 1962, a few of these strains were grown in the fields of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in Pusa, New Delhi, India. In May 1962, M. S. Swaminathan, a member of IARI's wheat program, requested of Dr B. P. Pal, director of IARI, to arrange for the visit of Borlaug to India and to obtain a wide range of dwarf wheat seed possessing the Norin 10 dwarfing genes. The letter was forwarded to the Indian Ministry of Agriculture headed by Shri C. Subramaniam, which arranged with the Rockefeller Foundation for Borlaug's visit.

In March 1963, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican government sent Borlaug and Dr Robert Glenn Anderson to India to continue his work. He supplied 100 kg (220 lb) of seed from each of the four most promising strains and 630 promising selections in advanced generations to the IARI in October 1963, and test plots were subsequently planted at Delhi, Ludhiana, Pant Nagar, Kanpur, Pune and Indore. Anderson stayed as head of the Rockefeller Foundation Wheat Program in New Delhi until 1975.

During the mid-1960s the Indian subcontinent was at war and experienced minor famine and starvation, which was limited partially by the U.S. shipping a fifth of its wheat production to India in 1966 and 1967. The Indian and Pakistani bureaucracies and the region's cultural opposition to new agricultural techniques initially prevented Borlaug from fulfilling his desire to immediately plant the new wheat strains there. In 1965, as a response to food shortages, Borlaug imported 550 tons of seeds for the government.

Biologist Paul R. Ehrlich wrote in his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich said, "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971," and "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980."

In 1965, after extensive testing, Borlaug's team, under Anderson, began its effort by importing about 450 tons of Lerma Rojo and Sonora 64 semi-dwarf seed varieties: 250 tons went to Pakistan and 200 to India. They encountered many obstacles. Their first shipment of wheat was held up in Mexican customs and so it could not be shipped from the port at Guaymas in time for proper planting. Instead, it was sent via a 30-truck convoy from Mexico to the U.S. port in Los Angeles, encountering delays at the Mexico–United States border. Once the convoy entered the U.S., it had to take a detour, as the U.S. National Guard had closed the freeway due to the Watts riots in Los Angeles. When the seeds reached Los Angeles, a Mexican bank refused to honor Pakistan treasury's payment of US$100,000, because the check contained three misspelled words. Still, the seed was loaded onto a freighter destined for Bombay, India, and Karachi, Pakistan. Twelve hours into the freighter's voyage, war broke out between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region. Borlaug received a telegram from the Pakistani minister of agriculture, Malik Khuda Bakhsh Bucha: "I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble with my check, but I've got troubles, too. Bombs are falling on my front lawn. Be patient, the money is in the bank..."

These delays prevented Borlaug's group from conducting the germination tests needed to determine seed quality and proper seeding levels. They started planting immediately and often worked in sight of artillery flashes. A week later, Borlaug discovered that his seeds were germinating at less than half the normal rate. It later turned out that the seeds had been damaged in a Mexican warehouse by over-fumigation with a pesticide. He immediately ordered all locations to double their seeding rates.

The initial yields of Borlaug's crops were higher than any ever harvested in South Asia. The countries subsequently committed to importing large quantities of both the Lerma Rojo 64 and Sonora 64 varieties. In 1966, India imported 18,000 tons—the largest purchase and import of any seed in the world at that time. In 1967, Pakistan imported 42,000 tons, and Turkey 21,000 tons. Pakistan's import, planted on 1.5 million acres (6,100 km2), produced enough wheat to seed the entire nation's wheatland the following year. By 1968, when Ehrlich's book was released, William Gaud of the United States Agency for International Development was calling Borlaug's work a "Green Revolution". High yields led to a shortage of various utilities—labor to harvest the crops, bullock carts to haul it to the threshing floor, jute bags, trucks, rail cars, and grain storage facilities. Some local governments were forced to close school buildings temporarily to use them for grain storage.

In Pakistan, wheat yields nearly doubled, from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 7.3 million tons in 1970; Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production by 1968. Yields were over 21 million tons by 2000. In India, yields increased from 12.3 million tons in 1965 to 20.1 million tons in 1970. By 1974, India was self-sufficient in the production of all cereals. By 2000, India was harvesting a record 76.4 million tons (2.81 billion bushels) of wheat. Since the 1960s, food production in both nations has increased faster than the rate of population growth. India's use of high-yield farming has prevented an estimated 100 million acres (400,000 km2) of virgin land from being converted into farmland—an area about the size of California, or 13.6% of the total area of India. The use of these wheat varieties has also had a substantial effect on production in six Latin American countries, six countries in the Near and Middle East, and several others in Africa.

Borlaug's work with wheat contributed to the development of high-yield semi-dwarf indica and japonica rice cultivars at the International Rice Research Institute and China's Hunan Rice Research Institute. Borlaug's colleagues at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research also developed and introduced a high-yield variety of rice throughout most of Asia. Land devoted to the semi-dwarf wheat and rice varieties in Asia expanded from 200 acres (0.8 km2) in 1965 to over 40 million acres (160,000 km2) in 1970. In 1970, this land accounted for over 10% of the more productive cereal land in Asia.

Nobel Peace Prize
For his contributions to the world food supply, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Norwegian officials notified his wife in Mexico City at 4:00 a.m., but Borlaug had already left for the test fields in the Toluca valley, about 40 miles (65 km) west of Mexico City. A chauffeur took her to the fields to inform her husband. According to his daughter, Jeanie Laube, "My mom said, 'You won the Nobel Peace Prize,' and he said, 'No, I haven't', ... It took some convincing ... He thought the whole thing was a hoax". He was awarded the prize on December 10.

In his Nobel Lecture the following day, he speculated on his award: "When the Nobel Peace Prize Committee designated me the recipient of the 1970 award for my contribution to the 'green revolution', they were in effect, I believe, selecting an individual to symbolize the vital role of agriculture and food production in a world that is hungry, both for bread and for peace". His speech repeatedly presented improvements in food production within a sober understanding of the context of population. "The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise, the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only.

"Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the "Population Monster"...Since man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth..."

Borlaug hypothesis
Borlaug continually advocated increasing crop yields as a means to curb deforestation. The large role he played in both increasing crop yields and promoting this view has led to this methodology being called by agricultural economists the "Borlaug hypothesis", namely that increasing the productivity of agriculture on the best farmland can help control deforestation by reducing the demand for new farmland. According to this view, assuming that global food demand is on the rise, restricting crop usage to traditional low-yield methods would also require at least one of the following: the world population to decrease, either voluntarily or as a result of mass starvations; or the conversion of forest land into crop land. It is thus argued that high-yield techniques are ultimately saving ecosystems from destruction. On a global scale, this view holds strictly true ceteris paribus, if deforestation only occurs to increase land for agriculture. But other land uses exist, such as urban areas, pasture, or fallow, so further research is necessary to ascertain what land has been converted for what purposes, to determine how true this view remains.

Increased profits from high-yield production may also induce cropland expansion in any case, although as world food needs decrease, this expansion may decrease as well.

Borlaug expressed the idea now known as the "Borlaug hypothesis" in a speech given in Oslo, Norway, in 2000, upon the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize: "Had the global cereal yields of 1950 still prevailed in 1999, we would have needed nearly 1.8 billion ha of additional land of the same quality – instead of the 600 million that was used – to equal the current global harvest."

Criticisms and his view of critics
Borlaug's name is nearly synonymous with the Green Revolution, against which many criticisms have been mounted over the decades. Throughout his years of research, Borlaug's programs often faced opposition by nonscientists who consider genetic crossbreeding to be unnatural, and therefore those that inherently dislike the unnatural criticized such crossbreeding. These farming techniques, in addition to increasing yields, often reaped large profits for U.S. agribusiness and agrochemical corporations and were criticized by one author in 2003 as widening social inequality in the countries owing to uneven food distribution while forcing a capitalist agenda of U.S. corporations onto countries that had undergone land reform.

Other concerns include the crossing of genetic barriers; the inability of a single crop to fulfill all nutritional requirements; the decreased biodiversity from planting few varieties; the environmental and economic effects of inorganic fertilizer and pesticides; the side effects of large amounts of herbicides sprayed on fields of herbicide-resistant crops; and the destruction of wilderness caused by the construction of roads in populated third-world areas.

Borlaug refuted or dismissed most claims of his critics but did take certain concerns seriously. He stated that his work has been "a change in the right direction, but it has not transformed the world into a Utopia". Of environmental lobbyists opposing crop yield improvements, he stated, "some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things." Borlaug cautioned, "There are no miracles in agricultural production. Nor is there such a thing as a miracle variety of wheat, rice, or maize which can serve as an elixir to cure all ills of a stagnant, traditional agriculture."

The journalist John Vidal, writing in The Guardian, commented that the plaudits and honors heaped on Borlaug present him as a "saint or even the god of American farmers", but that the technology was far from perfect. The Green Revolution promised to end hunger and poverty, and to benefit rural societies everywhere. Instead, its long-term effects included what the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva has called "rural impoverishment, increased debt, social inequality and the displacement of vast numbers of peasant farmers". Vidal further cites the political commentator Alexander Cockburn, who wrote that Borlaug was "aside from Kissinger, probably the biggest killer of all to have got the peace prize", given that his wheat "led to the death of peasants by the million".

Later roles
Following his retirement, Borlaug continued to participate in teaching, research and activism. He spent much of the year based at CIMMYT in Mexico, conducting research, and four months of the year serving at Texas A&M University, where he had been a distinguished professor of international agriculture since 1984. From 1994 to 2003, Borlaug served on the International Fertilizer Development Center board of directors. In 1999, the university's Board of Regents named its US$16 million Center for Southern Crop Improvement in honor of Borlaug. He worked in the building's Heep Center, and taught one semester each year.

Production in Africa
In the early 1980s, environmental groups that were opposed to Borlaug's methods campaigned against his planned expansion of efforts into Africa. They prompted the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and the World Bank to stop funding most of his African agriculture projects. Western European governments were persuaded to stop supplying fertilizer to Africa. According to David Seckler, former Director General of the International Water Management Institute, "the environmental community in the 1980s went crazy pressuring the donor countries and the big foundations not to support ideas like inorganic fertilizers for Africa."

In 1984, during the Ethiopian famine, Ryoichi Sasakawa, the chairman of the Japan Shipbuilding Industry Foundation (now the Nippon Foundation), contacted the semi-retired Borlaug, wondering why the methods used in Asia were not extended to Africa, and hoping Borlaug could help. He convinced Borlaug to help with this new effort, and Borlaug assisted in creating the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) to coordinate the project.

The SAA is a research and extension organization that aims to increase food production in African countries that are struggling with food shortages. "I assumed we'd do a few years of research first," Borlaug later recalled, "but after I saw the terrible circumstances there, I said, 'Let's just start growing'." Soon, Borlaug and the SAA had projects in seven countries. Yields of maize in developed African countries tripled. Yields of wheat, sorghum, cassava, and cowpeas also increased in these countries. At present (more than ten years after Borlaug's death in 2009), program activities are under way in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, all of which suffered from repeated famines in previous decades.

From 1986 to 2009, Borlaug was the President of the SAA. That year, a joint venture between The Carter Center and SAA was launched called Sasakawa-Global 2000 (SG 2000). The program focuses on food, population and agricultural policy. Since then, more than 8 million small-scale farmers in 15 African countries have been trained in SAA farming techniques, which have helped them to double or triple grain production. Those elements that allowed Borlaug's projects to succeed in India and Pakistan, such as well-organized market economies, transportation, and irrigation systems, are severely lacking throughout much of Africa, posing additional obstacles to increasing yields and reducing the ongoing threat of food shortages. Because of these challenges, Borlaug's initial projects were restricted to relatively developed regions of the continent.

Despite these setbacks, Borlaug found encouragement. Visiting Ethiopia in 1994 after a major famine, Jimmy Carter won Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's support for a campaign seeking to aid farmers, using the fertilizer diammonium phosphate and Borlaug's methods. The following season, Ethiopia recorded the largest harvests of major crops in history, with a 32% increase in production, and a 15% increase in average yield over the previous season. For Borlaug, the rapid increase in yields suggested that there was still hope for higher food production throughout sub-Saharan Africa, despite lingering questions about population sustainability and the absence of long-term studies in Africa.

World Food Prize
The World Food Prize is an international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. The prize was created in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, as a way to recognize personal accomplishments, and as a means of education by using the Prize to establish role models for others. The first prize was given to Borlaug's former colleague, M. S. Swaminathan, in 1987, for his work in India. The next year, Swaminathan used the US$250,000 prize to start the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation for research on sustainable development.

Global stem rust and the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative
In 2005, Borlaug, with his former graduate student Ronnie Coffman, convened an international expert panel in Kenya on the emerging threat of Ug99 in east Africa. The working group produced a report, "Sounding the Alarm on Global Stem Rust", and their work led to the formation of the Global Rust Initiative. In 2008, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the organization was re-named the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative

Future of global farming and food supply
The limited potential for land expansion for cultivation worried Borlaug, who, in March 2005, stated that, "we will have to double the world food supply by 2050." With 85% of future growth in food production having to come from lands already in use, he recommends a multidisciplinary research focus to further increase yields, mainly through increased crop immunity to large-scale diseases, such as the rust fungus, which affects all cereals but rice. His dream was to "transfer rice immunity to cereals such as wheat, maize, sorghum and barley, and transfer bread-wheat proteins (gliadin and glutenin) to other cereals, especially rice and maize".

Borlaug believed that genetically modified organisms (GMO) were the only way to increase food production as the world runs out of unused arable land. GMOs were not inherently dangerous "because we've been genetically modifying plants and animals for a long time. Long before we called it science, people were selecting the best breeds." In a review of Borlaug's 2000 publication entitled Ending world hunger: the promise of biotechnology and the threat of antiscience zealotry, the authors argued that Borlaug's warnings were still true in 2010:

"GM crops are as natural and safe as today's bread wheat, opined Dr. Borlaug, who also reminded agricultural scientists of their moral obligation to stand up to the antiscience crowd and warn policy makers that global food insecurity will not disappear without this new technology and ignoring this reality global food insecurity would make future solutions all the more difficult to achieve."

- Rozwadowski and Kagale

According to Borlaug, "Africa, the former Soviet republics, and the cerrado are the last frontiers. After they are in use, the world will have no additional sizable blocks of arable land left to put into production, unless you are willing to level whole forests, which you should not do. So, future food-production increases will have to come from higher yields. And though I have no doubt yields will keep going up, whether they can go up enough to feed the population monster is another matter. Unless progress with agricultural yields remains very strong, the next century will experience sheer human misery that, on a numerical scale, will exceed the worst of everything that has come before".

Besides increasing the worldwide food supply, early in his career Borlaug stated that taking steps to decrease the rate of population growth will also be necessary to prevent food shortages. In his Nobel Lecture of 1970, Borlaug stated, "Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the 'Population Monster' ... If it continues to increase at the estimated present rate of two percent a year, the world population will reach 6.5 billion by the year 2000. Currently, with each second, or tick of the clock, about 2.2 additional people are added to the world population. The rhythm of increase will accelerate to 2.7, 3.3, and 4.0 for each tick of the clock by 1980, 1990, and 2000, respectively, unless man becomes more realistic and preoccupied about this impending doom. The tick-tock of the clock will continually grow louder and more menacing each decade. Where will it all end?" However, some observers have suggested that by the 1990s Borlaug had changed his position on population control. They point to a quote from the year 2000 in which he stated: "I now say that the world has the technology—either available or well advanced in the research pipeline—to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology? While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called 'organic' methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot." However, Borlaug remained on the advisory board of Population Media Center, an organization working to stabilize world population, until his death.

Death
Borlaug died of lymphoma at the age of 95, on September 12, 2009, in his Dallas home.

Borlaug's children released a statement saying, "We would like his life to be a model for making a difference in the lives of others and to bring about efforts to end human misery for all mankind."

The Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh and President of India Pratibha Patil paid tribute to Borlaug saying, "Borlaug's life and achievement are testimony to the far-reaching contribution that one man's towering intellect, persistence and scientific vision can make to human peace and progress."

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) described Borlaug as "a towering scientist whose work rivals that of the 20th century's other great scientific benefactors of humankind" and Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations said, "As we celebrate Dr. Borlaug's long and remarkable life, we also celebrate the long and productive lives that his achievements have made possible for so many millions of people around the world... we will continue to be inspired by his enduring devotion to the poor, needy and vulnerable of our world."

Honors and awards
In 1968, Borlaug received what he considered an especially satisfying tribute when the people of Ciudad Obregón, where some of his earliest experiments were undertaken, named a street after him. Also in that year, he became a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

In 1970, he was given an honorary doctorate by the Agricultural University of Norway.

In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee "for his contributions to the 'green revolution' that was having such an impact on food production particularly in Asia and in Latin America."

In 1970, he was awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle by the Mexican government.

In 1971, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine of Argentina

In 1971, he received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.

In 1974, he was awarded a Peace Medal (in the form of a dove, carrying a wheat ear in its beak) by Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India.

In 1975, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Iowa Academy of Science.

In 1980, he received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

In 1980, he was elected honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

In 1984, his name was placed in the National Agricultural Hall of Fame at the national center in Bonner Springs, Kansas. Also that year, he was recognized for sustained service to humanity through outstanding contributions in plant breeding from the Governors Conference on Agriculture Innovations in Little Rock, Arkansas. Also in 1984, he received the Henry G. Bennet Distinguished Service Award at commencement ceremonies at Oklahoma State University.

In 1986, Borlaug was inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame during Norsk Høstfest.

Borlaug was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1987.

Borlaug had a long history of involvement with the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST). Borlaug's remarks as the invited speaker at the organization's conference in 1973 became its first published paper. Borlaug received the organization's Charles A. Black Award in 2005 for his contributions to public policy and the public understanding of science. In 2010, CAST changed the name of the Charles A. Black Award (1986-2009) to the Borlaug CAST Communication Award.

On August 19, 2013, his statue was unveiled inside the ICAR's NASC Complex at New Delhi, India.

On March 25, 2014, a statue of Borlaug at the United States Capitol was unveiled in a ceremony on the 100th anniversary of his birth. This statue replaces the statue of James Harlan as one of the two statues given to the National Statuary Hall Collection by the state of Iowa.

Borlaug received the 1977 U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the 2002 Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, the 2002 Rotary International Award for World Understanding and Peace, and the 2004 National Medal of Science. As of January 2004, Borlaug had received 49 honorary degrees from as many universities, in 18 countries, the most recent from Dartmouth College on June 12, 2005, and was a foreign or honorary member of 22 international Academies of Sciences. In Iowa and Minnesota, "World Food Day", October 16, is referred to as "Norman Borlaug World Food Prize Day". Throughout the United States, it is referred to as "World Food Prize Day".

In 2006, the Government of India conferred on him its second highest civilian award: the Padma Vibhushan. He was awarded the Danforth Award for Plant Science by the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St Louis, Missouri in recognition of his lifelong commitment to increasing global agricultural production through plant science.

The stained-glass World Peace Window at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis, Minnesota, depicts "peace makers" of the 20th century, including Norman Borlaug.

In August 2006, Dr. Leon Hesser published The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger, an account of Borlaug's life and work. On August 4, the book received the 2006 Print of Peace award, as part of International Read For Peace Week. Borlaug is also the subject of the documentary film The Man Who Tried to Feed the World which first aired on American Experience on April 21, 2020.

On September 27, 2006, the United States Senate by unanimous consent passed the Congressional Tribute to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Act of 2006. The act authorizes that Borlaug be awarded America's highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal. On December 6, 2006, the House of Representatives passed the measure by voice vote. President George Bush signed the bill into law on December 14, 2006, and it became Public Law Number 109–395. According to the act, "the number of lives Dr. Borlaug has saved [is] more than a billion people" The act authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to strike and sell duplicates of the medal in bronze. He was presented with the medal on July 17, 2007.

Borlaug was a foreign fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences.

The Borlaug Dialogue (Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium) is named in his honour.

Books

 * The Green Revolution, Peace, and Humanity. 1970. Nobel Lecture, Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway. December 11, 1970.
 * Wheat in the Third World. 1982. Authors: Haldore Hanson, Norman E. Borlaug, and R. Glenn Anderson. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ISBN 0-86531-357-1
 * Land use, food, energy and recreation. 1983. Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. ISBN 0-940222-07-8
 * Feeding a human population that increasingly crowds a fragile planet. 1994. Mexico City. ISBN 968-6201-34-3
 * Norman Borlaug on World Hunger. 1997. Edited by Anwar Dil. San Diego/Islamabad/Lahore: Bookservice International. 499 pages. ISBN 0-9640492-3-6
 * The Green Revolution Revisited and the Road Ahead. 2000. Anniversary Nobel Lecture, Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway. September 8, 2000.
 * "Ending World Hunger. The Promise of Biotechnology and the Threat of Antiscience Zealotry". 2000. Plant Physiology, October 2000, Vol. 124, pp. 487–90. (duplicate)
 * Feeding a World of 10 Billion People: The TVA/IFDC Legacy. International Fertilizer Development Center, 2003. ISBN 0-88090-144-6
 * Prospects for world agriculture in the twenty-first century. 2004. Norman E. Borlaug, Christopher R. Dowswell. Published in: Sustainable agriculture and the international rice-wheat system. ISBN 0-8247-5491-3
 * Foreword to The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution. 2004. Henry I. Miller, Gregory Conko. ISBN 0-275-97879-6

title: Norman Borlaug


text:
Mike Judge

Michael Craig Judge (born October 17, 1962) is an American actor, animator, writer, producer, director, and musician. He is the creator of the animated television series Beavis and Butt-Head (1993–1997, 2011, 2022–present), and a co-creator of the television series King of the Hill (1997–2010), The Goode Family (2009), Silicon Valley (2014–2019), and Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus (2017–2018). He wrote and directed the films Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), Office Space (1999), Idiocracy (2006), and Extract (2009), and co-wrote the screenplay to Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022).

Judge was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He graduated from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied physics. After losing interest in a career in science, Judge focused on animation and short films. His animated short Frog Baseball was developed into the successful MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head, and the spin-off series Daria (with which Judge had no involvement).

In 1995, Judge and former Simpsons writer Greg Daniels developed King of the Hill, which debuted on Fox in 1997 and quickly became popular with both critics and audiences. Running for 13 seasons, it became one of the longest-running American animated series. During the run of the show, Judge took time off to write and direct Office Space, Idiocracy and Extract. As King of the Hill was coming to an end, Judge created his third show, ABC's The Goode Family, which received mixed reviews and was cancelled after 13 episodes. After a four-year hiatus, he created his fourth show, the live-action Silicon Valley for HBO, which has received critical acclaim. In 2017, Judge's fourth animated series, the music-themed Tales from the Tour Bus, premiered on Cinemax, to acclaim.

Judge has won a Primetime Emmy Award and two Annie Awards for King of the Hill and two Critics' Choice Television Awards and Satellite Awards for Silicon Valley.

Early life
Michael Craig Judge was born on October 17, 1962, in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He is the middle of three children born to Margaret Yvonne (née Blue), a librarian, and William James Judge, an archaeologist. At the time of his birth, his father was working for a nonprofit organization in Guayaquil and other parts of Ecuador, promoting agricultural development. Judge was raised from age three in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he spent a small portion of his life working on a chicken farm. He attended St. Pius X High School and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of California, San Diego, (UCSD) in 1985.

1985–1997: Early science career; musician; animation and Beavis and Butt-Head
After graduating from the University of California, San Diego, in 1985, he held several brief jobs in physics and mechanical engineering, but found himself growing bored with science. In 1987, he moved to Silicon Valley to join Parallax Graphics, a startup video card company with about 40 employees based in Santa Clara, California. Disliking the company's culture and his colleagues, Judge quit after less than three months, describing it as, "The people I met were like Stepford Wives. They were true believers in something, and I don't know what it was". Shortly after quitting his job, he became a bass player with a touring blues band. He was a part of Anson Funderburgh's band for two years, playing on their 1990 Black Top Records release Rack 'Em Up, while taking graduate math classes at the University of Texas at Dallas. He was planning to earn a master's degree as "a back-up plan" to become a community college math teacher after relocating to the north Dallas area for his then-wife's new job. In 1989, after seeing animation cels on display in a movie theater, Judge purchased a Bolex 16 mm film camera and began creating his own animated shorts in his home in Richardson, Texas. In 1991, his short film Office Space (also known as the Milton series of shorts) was acquired by Comedy Central, following an animation festival in Dallas. Shortly thereafter, he dropped out of school to focus on his career. In the early 1990s, he was playing blues bass with Doyle Bramhall.

In 1992, he developed Frog Baseball, a short film featuring the characters Beavis and Butt-Head, which was to be featured on Liquid Television, a 1990s animation showcase that appeared on MTV. The short led to the creation of the Beavis and Butt-Head series on MTV, in which Judge voiced both title characters as well as the majority of supporting characters and wrote and directed the majority of the episodes. The show centers on two socially incompetent, heavy metal-loving teenage wannabe delinquents, Beavis and Butt-Head, who live in the fictional town of Highland, Texas. The two have no adult supervision, are dim-witted, sex-obsessed, uneducated, barely literate, and lack any empathy or moral scruples, even regarding each other. Over its run, Beavis and Butt-Head drew a notable amount of both positive and negative reaction from the public with its combination of lewd humor and implied criticism of society.

Judge himself is highly critical of the animation and quality of earlier episodes, in particular the first two – Blood Drive/Give Blood and Door to Door – which he described as "awful, I don't know why anybody liked it ... I was burying my head in the sand." The series spawned the feature-length film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America and the spin-off show Daria.

After a hiatus of two decades, the series aired a new season on October 27, 2011. The premiere episode was a ratings hit, with an audience of 3.3 million total viewers. On January 10, 2014, Judge said that there is still a possibility that Beavis and Butt-Head could be pitched to another network, adding that he wouldn't mind making more episodes.

1997–2009: King of the Hill, Office Space, and Idiocracy
In early 1995, after the successful first run of Beavis and Butt-Head, Judge decided to create another animated series, King of the Hill. Judge conceived the idea for the show, drew the main characters, and wrote a pilot script. Fox was uncertain of the viability of Judge's concept for an animated comedy based in reality and set in the American South, so the network teamed him up with The Simpsons writer Greg Daniels. Judge was a former resident of Garland, Texas, upon which the fictional community of Arlen was loosely based, but as Judge stated in a later interview, the show was based more specifically on the Dallas suburb of Richardson. Judge voiced characters Hank Hill and Jeff Boomhauer. The show is about a middle-class Methodist family named the Hills living in a small town called Arlen, Texas. It attempts to retain a naturalistic approach, seeking humor in the conventional and mundane aspects of everyday life while dealing with issues comically. After its debut in 1997, the series became a large success for Fox and was named one of the best television series of the year by various publications, including Entertainment Weekly, Time, and TV Guide.

For the 1997–1998 season, the series became one of Fox's highest-rated programs and even briefly outperformed The Simpsons in ratings. Although ratings remained consistent throughout the 10th, 11th and 12th seasons and had begun to rise in the overall Nielsen ratings (up to the 105th most watched series on television, from 118 in season 8), Fox abruptly announced in 2008 that King of the Hill had been cancelled. The cancellation coincided with the announcement that Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad!, would be creating a Family Guy spin-off called The Cleveland Show, which would take over King of the Hill's time slot. Hopes to keep the show afloat surfaced as sources indicated that ABC (which was already airing Judge's new animated comedy, The Goode Family) was interested in securing the rights to the show, but in January 2009, ABC president Steve McPherson said he had "no plans to pick up the animated comedy." On April 30, 2009, it was announced that Fox ordered at least two more episodes to give the show a proper finale. The show's 14th season was supposed to air sometime in the 2009–10 season, but Fox later announced that it would not air the episodes, opting instead for syndication. On August 10, 2009, however, Fox released a statement that the network would air a one-hour series finale (which consisted of a regular 30-minute episode followed by a 30-minute finale) on September 13, 2009. The four remaining episodes of the series aired in syndication the week of May 3, 2010, and again on Adult Swim during the week of May 17, 2010. During the panel discussion for the return of Beavis and Butt-Head at Comic-Con 2011, Mike Judge said that no current plans exist to revive King of the Hill, although he would not rule out the possibility of it returning.

Judge began to develop one of his four animated short films titled Milton, about an office drone named Milton that Judge created, which first aired on Liquid Television and Night After Night with Allan Havey and later aired on Saturday Night Live. The inspiration came from a temp job he once had that involved alphabetizing purchase orders and a job he had as an engineer for three months in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1980s, "just in the heart of Silicon Valley and in the middle of that overachiever yuppie thing, it was just awful". Judge sold the completed film Office Space to 20th Century Fox based on his script and a cast that included Jennifer Aniston, Ron Livingston, and David Herman. Originally, the studio wanted to make a film out of the Milton character but Judge was not interested, opting instead to make more of an ensemble cast–based film. The studio suggested that he should make a film like Car Wash but "just set in an office". Judge made the relatively painless transition from animation to live-action with the help of the film's director of photography who taught him about lenses and where to put the camera. Judge says, "I had a great crew, and it's good going into it not pretending you're an expert." Studio executives were not happy with the footage Judge was getting. He remembers them telling him, "More energy! More energy! We gotta reshoot it! You're failing! You're failing!" In addition, Fox did not like the gangsta rap music used in the film until a focus group approved of it. Judge hated the ending and felt that a complete rewrite of the third act was necessary. In the film, he made a cameo appearance as Stan (complete with hairpiece and fake mustache), the manager of Chotchkie's, a fictionalized parody of chain restaurants like Chili's, Applebee's and TGI Friday's, and the boss of Jennifer Aniston's character, whom he continually undermines and interrogates over her lack of sufficient enthusiasm for the job and the insufficient quantity of "flair" (buttons, ribbons, etc.) she wears on her uniform. The film was released on February 19, 1999, and it was well received by critics. Although not particularly successful at the box office, it sold well on VHS and DVD, and it has come to be recognized as a cult classic.

Beginning in fall 2003, Judge and fellow animator Don Hertzfeldt created an animation festival called "The Animation Show". "The Animation Show" toured the country annually for several years, screening animated shorts. In 2005, Judge was presented with the Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award by Johnny Hardwick.

Judge has made supporting and cameo appearances in numerous films. Judge had a voice cameo as Kenny in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999), the feature-length film adaptation of the popular Comedy Central series; he voiced Kenny McCormick when he was unhooded towards the end of the film. He later acted in the science-fiction family comedy franchise Spy Kids, where he played Donnagon Giggles in the first three films. His next film appearance was Serving Sara (2002) where he played a motel manager. He later appeared in the comedy Jackass Number Two (2006), in which he can be seen during the closing credits. An extended version of his sequence can be seen in Jackass 2.5 (2007) which was a direct-to-video release. Judge also created a video clip of Beavis and Butt-Head ripping into Steve-O for his video Poke the Puss, where the two try imagining if they would like the video better if they were black. The clip aired as a part of Jackassworld.com: 24-Hour Takeover, a February 23, 2008, television special on MTV to coincide with the official launch of jackassworld.com. The characters appeared again in the third Jackass film, titled Jackass 3D, at the beginning of the film, telling viewers to put on their 3D glasses for the film.

Judge's third film, Idiocracy, a dystopian comedy starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph, was given a limited release theatrically by 20th Century Fox in September 2006, two years after production. The film's original release date was intended to be on August 5, 2005, according to Mike Judge.

In April 2006, a release date was set for September 1, 2006. The film was released without a trailer or substantial marketing campaign. The film was not screened for critics beforehand as is usually done. Lack of concrete information from Fox led to speculation that the distributor may have actively attempted to keep the film from being seen by a large audience, while fulfilling a contractual obligation for theatrical release ahead of a DVD release, according to Ryan Pearson of the AP.

That speculation was followed by open criticism of the studio's lack of support from Ain't It Cool News, Time, and Esquire. Time's Joel Stein wrote "the film's ads and trailers tested atrociously", but "still, abandoning Idiocracy seems particularly unjust, since Judge has made a lot of money for Fox." Despite the film not being screened for critics, the film received positive reviews and was a minor box-office success.

In the U.S., the film was released to DVD in January 2007 and later aired on premium-television, multiplex channels Cinemax in September 2007 and HBO in January 2008. Since then, it has gained a cult following.

2009–2013: The Goode Family, Extract, and other projects
Judge's fourth directorial effort was 2009's Extract. Shortly after completing Office Space, Judge was already about 40 pages into his follow-up script, set in the world of an extract factory, when he was convinced by his representative team that he needed to shelve that and concentrate on something more commercial. Over the next several years, he focused his energy on developing Idiocracy. But years later, by the time of the film's release, audiences had decided that Office Space had struck a chord, so they were ready to see Judge return to on-the-job humor, and thus the Extract script was given new life.

Seeking to keep Extract below the radar of the studio system, Judge and his producers set up a production company, Ternion Productions, and arranged private financing while partnering with Miramax for domestic distribution of the film. Judge relied heavily on his own personal knowledge of the industrial world to bring the story to life. "I actually worked in a factory a little bit myself ... I hopefully write stuff that is recognizable as the archetypes of this world," Judge stated.

Keeping true to this baseline of reality, Extract was shot in a working factory, in this case a water bottling plant south of Los Angeles, in the City of Commerce. He makes an uncredited appearance as Jim, a union organizer. The film premiered on September 4, 2009, and received mixed to positive reviews from critics and was a minor commercial success.

Judge's third television series, The Goode Family, debuted on ABC but was cancelled after one season. Comedy Central first aired the series in reruns on January 4, 2010. However, the series was pulled off the schedule shortly thereafter. It was confirmed on The Goode Family Facebook page that Comedy Central had picked up the reruns of the series, which were to be evaluated for a chance of being renewed for a second season. On August 8, 2009, however, ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson stated that the show, along with Surviving Suburbia, had officially been canceled due to low ratings.

In 2010, reruns of The Goode Family aired Monday nights at 10 pm on Comedy Central, beginning January 4. It departed the network's primetime schedule after four weeks, returning occasionally in low-trafficked timeslots.

In 2012, Judge directed the music video (animation by Titmouse) for country music group Zac Brown Band's "The Wind". In 2013, Judge collaborated with Seth MacFarlane on a mashup episode of Family Guy, in which, complete with a Hill-themed opening, Judge reprises his role as Hank Hill. Earlier in 2010 and 2012, Judge played cameos as Hank on two episodes of MacFarlane's The Cleveland Show.

2014–2019: Silicon Valley and Tales from the Tour Bus
Judge created his fourth show, Silicon Valley, with King of the Hill executive producers John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. The HBO comedy is a single-camera live-action sitcom set in Northern California. One of its main themes is the idea that "the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success". The first season of Silicon Valley was 8 episodes long and received critical and public acclaim. Silicon Valley was renewed for a second season on April 21, 2014, and a third season on April 13, 2015. Silicon Valley aired its fourth season, which premiered on April 23, 2017. The series was renewed for a fifth season, which premiered on March 25, 2018, and a sixth season, which premiered on October 27, 2019, and served as its final season.

On January 12, 2017, Deadline confirmed that Cinemax ordered 8 episodes of Judge's new animated series, Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus. The series premiered on September 22, 2017. Judge wrote the story for Action Point, the film was released in 2018. In 2018, he starred in the film, The Front Runner. In 2019, Judge announced he had been developing two projects for HBO: QualityLand and A5, both of which were later scrapped by HBO in 2021.

2020–present: Bandera Entertainment, Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill revivals
In June 2020, Comedy Central announced it had ordered a second revival of Beavis and Butt-Head consisting of two new seasons along with spin-offs and specials. In the new series, Beavis and Butt-Head will enter a "whole new Gen Z world" with meta-themes that are said to be relatable to both new fans, who may be unfamiliar with the original series, and old.

In February 2022, it was announced that the revival would instead premiere on Paramount+, following a second Beavis and Butt-Head feature film entitled Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe. Originally, Paramount executives wanted a live-action Beavis and Butt-Head movie. Judge held auditions over Zoom for the project. He eventually talked the company into doing an animated movie instead to reestablish the characters first, with a future live-action movie still a possibility. In June 2022, it was confirmed that new episodes would debut later that year, along with the full library of over 227 original episodes, newly remastered, with music videos intact. One month later, it was announced that the revival would premiere on August 4, 2022. Season 9 continues the concept of the Beavis and Butt-Head multiverse initially explored in Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe. Teenage Beavis and Butt-Head, Old Beavis and Butt-Head, and Smart Beavis and Butt-Head all get their own dedicated episodes in the revival.

In January 2022, it was announced that Judge and Daniels had formed an animation company called Bandera Entertainment, with a revival of King of the Hill being one of several series in development. During a panel at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2022, Judge stated that the show "has a very good chance of coming back." In September 2022, Fox Entertainment president Michael Thorn confirmed that the series would not air on Fox, with the reason being that Fox prefers to have full ownership of whatever new shows they air. On January 31, 2023, a revival on Hulu was officially confirmed to be ordered.

Bandera's first produced series is Anna Drezen's Praise Petey starring Annie Murphy, John Cho, and Stephen Root among others. The series premiered on July 21, 2023 on Freeform and Hulu, and has received mostly positive reviews,   with Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 80% Fresh from critics, and 90% Fresh from audiences. The series was cancelled after one season. In 2024, Judge, along with Zach Woods and Brandon Gardner, co-created the series In the Know. The series premiered on January 25, 2024 on Peacock.

Personal life
Judge married Francesca Morocco in 1989; they divorced in 2009. Together they have two daughters and a son. The family lives in Austin, Texas, and Santa Monica, California, having previously resided in Malibu.

Political views
While King of the Hill is often a satire of protagonist Hank Hill, identifiable as a conservative, and his The Goode Family is essentially a satire centered around a liberal family, Judge avoids discussing his own political leanings.

In reviewing Idiocracy, Salon stated, "Judge's gimlet eye is so ruthless that at times his politics seem to border on South Park libertarianism". A writer for the libertarian magazine Reason seems to agree, comparing King of the Hill to the anti-authoritarian point of view of South Park and The Simpsons, though he calls the show more populist, noting the disdain King of the Hill seems to have for bureaucrats, professionals, and big-box chains.

Still, Judge denies having political messages in his shows, saying in 2006 in an IGN interview about King of the Hill:

"I try to not let the show get too political. To me, it's more social than political I guess you'd say, because that's funnier. I don't really like political reference humor that much. Although I liked the episode 'Hank's Bully' where Hank's talking to the mailman and he says, 'Why would anyone want to lick a stamp that has Bill Clinton on it?' To me that's just like more of a character thing about Hank than it is a political joke or anything. I don't want to do a bunch of stuff about the war, particularly."

In June 2016, before the presidential election in November, Etan Cohen told BuzzFeed that he and Judge would produce Idiocracy-themed campaign advertisements mocking Donald Trump's presidential campaign if given permission from 20th Century Fox to do so. It was later reported by Business Insider that they would not have been campaign ads, would have mocked all of the candidates, and would not go forward.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Mike Judge


text:
Jungfrau

The Jungfrau (,, "maiden, virgin"), at 4158 m is one of the main summits of the Bernese Alps, located between the northern canton of Bern and the southern canton of Valais, halfway between Interlaken and Fiesch. Together with the Eiger and Mönch, the Jungfrau forms a massive wall of mountains overlooking the Bernese Oberland and the Swiss Plateau, one of the most distinctive sights of the Swiss Alps.

The summit was first reached on August 3, 1811, by the Meyer brothers of Aarau and two chamois hunters from Valais. The ascent followed a long expedition over the glaciers and high passes of the Bernese Alps. It was not until 1865 that a more direct route on the northern side was opened.

The construction of the Jungfrau Railway in the early 20th century, which connects Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch, the saddle between the Mönch and the Jungfrau, made the area one of the most-visited places in the Alps. Along with the Aletsch Glacier to the south, the Jungfrau is part of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, which was declared a World Heritage Site in 2001.

Etymology
The name Jungfrau ("maiden, virgin"), which refers to the highest of the three prominent mountains overlooking the Interlaken region, along with the Mönch ("monk") and the Eiger ("ogre"), is most likely derived from the name Jungfrauenberg given to Wengernalp, the alpine meadow directly facing the huge northern side of the Jungfrau, across the Trummelbach gorge. Wengernalp was so named for the nuns of Interlaken Monastery, its historical owner. Contrary to popular belief, the name did not originate from the appearance of the snow-covered mountain, the latter looking like a veiled woman.

The "virgin" peak was heavily romanticized as "goddess" or "priestess" in late 18th to 19th century Romanticism. Its summit, considered inaccessible, remained untouched until the 19th century. After the first ascent in 1811 by Swiss alpinist Johann Rudolf Meyer, the peak was jokingly referred to as "Mme Meyer" (Mrs. Meyer).

Geographic setting
Politically, the Jungfrau (and its massif) is split between the municipalities of Lauterbrunnen (Bern) and Fieschertal (Valais). It is the third-highest mountain of the Bernese Alps after the nearby Finsteraarhorn and Aletschhorn, respectively 12 and 8 km away. But from Lake Thun, and the greater part of the canton of Bern, it is the most conspicuous and the nearest of the Bernese Oberland peaks; with a height difference of 3600 m between the summit and the town of Interlaken. This, and the extreme steepness of the north face, secured for it an early reputation for inaccessibility.

The Jungfrau is the westernmost and highest point of a gigantic 10 km wall dominating the valleys of Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. The wall is formed by the alignment of some of the biggest north faces in the Alps, with the Mönch (4107 m) and Eiger (3967 m) to the east of the Jungfrau, and overlooks the valleys to its north by a height of up to 3 km. The Jungfrau is approximately 6 km from the Eiger; with the summit of the Mönch between the two mountains, 3.5 km from the Jungfrau. The Jungfraujoch is the saddle between the Jungfrau and the Mönch and the Eigerjoch is the saddle between the Mönch and the Eiger. The wall is extended to the east by the Fiescherwand and to the west by the Lauterbrunnen Wall, although it follows different directions from the Jungfrau and the Eiger.

The difference of altitude between the deep valley of Lauterbrunnen (800 m) and the summit is particularly visible from the area of Mürren. From the valley floor, west of the massif, the altitude gain is more than 3 km for a horizontal distance of 4 km.

The landscapes around the Jungfrau are extremely contrasted. In contrast to the vertiginous precipices of its northwest, the mountain's southeastern side emerges from the upper snows of the Jungfraufirn, one of the main feeders of the Aletsch Glacier, at around 3500 m. The 20 km valley of Aletsch on the southeast is completely uninhabited, and is surrounded by neighboring valleys with similar landscapes. The area as a whole constitutes the largest glaciated area not just in the Alps, but in Europe as well.

Climbing history
In 1811, the brothers Johann Rudolf (1768–1825) and Hieronymus Meyer, sons of Johann Rudolf Meyer (1739–1813), the head of a rich merchant family of Aarau, along with several servants and a porter picked up at Guttannen, first reached the Valais by way of the Grimsel, and crossed the Beich Pass, a glacier pass over the Oberaletsch Glacier, to the head of the Lötschen valley. There, they added two local chamois hunters, Alois Volken and Joseph Bortis, to their party and traversed the Lötschenlücke before reaching the Aletschfirn (the west branch of the Aletsch Glacier), where they established the base camp, north of the Aletschhorn. After the Guttannen porter was sent back alone over the Lötschenlücke, the party finally reached the summit of the Jungfrau by the Rottalsattel on August 3. They then recrossed the two passes named to their point of departure in Valais, and went home again over the Grimsel.

The journey was a most extraordinary one for the time, and some persons threw doubts at its complete success. To settle these, another expedition was undertaken in 1812. In this the two sons, Rudolf (1791–1833) and Gottlieb (1793–1829), of Johann Rudolf Meyer, played the chief parts. After an unsuccessful attempt, defeated by bad weather, in the course of which the Oberaarjoch was crossed twice (this route being much more direct than the long detour through the Lötschental), Rudolf, with the two Valais hunters (Alois Volker and Joseph Bortis), a Guttannen porter named Arnold Abbühl, and a Hasle man, bivouacked on a depression on the southeast ridge of the Finsteraarhorn. Next day (August 16) the whole party attempted the ascent of the Finsteraarhorn from the Studer névé on the east by way of the southeast ridge, but Meyer, exhausted, remained behind. The following day the party crossed the Grünhornlücke to the Aletsch Glacier, but bad weather then put an end to further projects. At a bivouac, probably just opposite the present Konkordia Hut, the rest of the party, having come over the Oberaarjoch and the Grünhornlücke, joined the Finsteraarhorn party. Gottlieb, Rudolf's younger brother, had more patience than the rest and remained longer at the huts near the Märjelensee, where the adventurers had taken refuge. He could make the second ascent (September 3) of the Jungfrau, the Rottalsattel being reached from the east side as is now usual, and his companions being the two Valais hunters.

The third ascent dates from 1828, when several men from Grindelwald, headed by Peter Baumann, planted their flag upon the summit. Next came the ascent by Louis Agassiz, James David Forbes, Heath, Desor, and Duchatelier in 1841, recounted by Desor in his Excursions et Séjours dans les Glaciers. Gottlieb Samuel Studer published an account of the next ascent made by himself and Bürki in 1842.

In 1863, a party consisting of three young Oxford University graduates and three Swiss guides successfully reached the summit and returned to the base camp of the Faulberg (located near the present position of the Konkordia Hut) in less than 11 hours (see the section below, The 1863 Ascent). In the same year Mrs Stephen Winkworth became the first woman to climb the Jungfrau. She also slept overnight in the Faulberg cave prior to the ascent as there was no hut at that time.

Before the construction of the Jungfraujoch railway tunnel, the approach from the glaciers on the south side was very long. The first direct route from the valley of Lauterbrunnen was opened in 1865 by Geoffrey Winthrop Young, H. Brooke George with the guide Christian Almer. They had to carry ladders with them in order to cross the many crevasses on the north flank. Having spent the night on the rocks of the Schneehorn (3402 m) they gained next morning the Silberlücke, the depression between the Jungfrau and Silberhorn, and thence in little more than three hours reached the summit. Descending to the Aletsch Glacier they crossed the Mönchsjoch, and passed a second night on the rocks, reaching Grindelwald next day. This route became a usual until the opening of the Jungfraujoch.

The first winter ascent was made on 23 January 1874, by Meta Brevoort and W. A. B. Coolidge with guides Christian and Ulrich Almer. They used a sled to reach the upper Aletsch Glacier, and were accompanied by Miss Brevoort's favorite dog, Tschingel.

The Jungfrau was climbed via the west side for the first time in 1885 by Fritz and Heinrich von Allmen, Ulrich Brunner, Fritz Graf, Karl Schlunegger and Johann Stäger—all from Wengen. They ascended the Rottal ridge (Innere Rottalgrat) and reached the summit on 21 September. The more difficult and dangerous northeast ridge that connects the summit from the Jungfraujoch was first climbed on 30 July 1911 by Albert Weber and Hans Schlunegger.

In July 2007, six Swiss Army recruits, part of the Mountain Specialists Division 1, died in an accident on the normal route. Although the causes of the deaths was not immediately clear, a report by the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research concluded that the avalanche risk was unusually high due to recent snowfall, and that there was "no other reasonable explanation" other than an avalanche for the incident.

The 1863 ascent

The Führerbuch of the Alpine guide Peter Baumann records an ascent of the Jungfrau made by himself with three men from England in July 1863. The foreign climbers were long thought to have been John Tyndall, J. J. Hornby and T. H. Philpott, until in 1958 the records were checked by the Alpine Club and the following conclusion was reached:

"On July 23, 1863, Phillpotts, with James Robertson and H.J. Chaytor, climbed the Jungfrau (the entry shown in A.J. 32. 227 was wrongly transcribed by Montagnier, who says ‘T.H. Philpott’ for J. S. Phillpotts). The entry in Peter Baumann’s Führerbuch (facsimile in A.C. archives) says that the trio crossed the Strahlegg Pass and the Oberaarjoch, and then climbed the Jungfrau from the Eggishorn."

Tyndall, Hornby and Philpott were well-known Alpinists, but there is no record of their having attempted the Jungfrau in 1863. Robertson, Chaytor and Phillpotts were novices; they had recently graduated from Oxford University where they had all been keen members of the Oxford University Boat Club.

William Robertson (1839–1892), the leader of the expedition (wrongly called 'James' in the Note quoted above), was an Australian by birth, and the first non-British national to take part in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. He later became a barrister and member of parliament in Australia. He and H. J. Chaytor (possibly the father of the medievalist Henry John Chaytor) were both members of the victorious Oxford team in the 1861 Boat Race. James Surtees Phillpotts (1839–1930) was the third member of the team; he would later become headmaster of Bedford School. The trio had three Swiss guides, Peter Baumann, Peter Kaufmann ("Grabipeter", father of Peter Kaufmann the younger) and Rubi.

A description of the ascent of the Jungfrau is contained in a letter dated Sunday 26 July which Phillpotts wrote to his friend Alexander Potts (later to become the first headmaster of Fettes College). The letter is now in the possession of the Alpine Club. The following extracts are from that letter.

The Virgin certainly did not smile on the poor "fools who rushed in" on her sacred heights, i.e. in plain British, we had the treadmill slog, the biting wind, the half frost-bitten feet and the flayed faces that generally attend an Alpine ascent.

We got to the Faulberg hole about dark, and enjoyed the coffee the longman (Kauffmann) made, as one would in a hole in a rock in a cold evening. The "Faulberg Nachtlager" consists of two holes and a vestibule to the upper hole. The Upper Hole in which we lodged just contained Chay[tor], the Guv [Robertson] and myself, stretched at full length on a little hay over a hard rock mattress, convex instead of concave at the point where one likes to rest one's weight. Chaytor was in the middle, and as we were very close was warm and slept. The Guv and I courted Nature's soft nurse in vain. At two we got up and methodically put our feet into the stocks, i.e. our boots, breakfasted and shivered, then started (unwashed of course, as the cold gave us malignant hydrophobia) a little after 3:30.

The hole was about 150 ft up one of the loose stone cliffs one now knows so well. So we groped our way down it and over the moraine – the stars still lingering, as day was just dawning. We could not start at 1:30, the proper time, as there was no moon and we wanted light as we had to tramp the glacier at once. Rubi led, and off we went, roped and in Indian file, in the old treadmill way over the slippery plowed-field-like snow that lay on the upper glacier, for a pull without a check of one or two hours.

At last we came to the region of bergschrunds and crevasses. They seemed to form at first an impassable labyrinth, but gradually the guides wound in and out between the large rifts, which were exquisitely lovely with their overhanging banks of snow and glittering icicles, and then trod as on pins and needles over a snowbridge here and there, or had to take a jump over the more feasible ones – and we found ourselves at the foot of the mountain; trudged up on the snow which ought to have been crisp but was even then more or less fresh fallen and sloppy; had to creep over about three crevasses, and after a tiresome pull, dragging one leg after another out of ankle or knee deep snow, we got on a crest of snow at right angles to the slope we had just come up. That slope with its crevasses on one side, and on the other a shorter and much steeper one which led in a few steps to a precipice.

All along this crest went a snakelike long crevasse, for which we had continually to sound, and go first one side and then the other; then we got to the foot of the saddle. Some twenty or thirty steps, some cut, some uncut, soon took us up a kind of hollow, and we got on a little sloping plateau of some 6 ft large, where we left the grub and the knapsack, keeping my small flask of cognac only. Then up a steep ice slope, very steep I should say, down which the bits of ice cut out of the steps hopped and jumped at full gallop and then bounded over to some bottomless place which we could not see down. Their pace gave one an unpleasant idea of the possible consequence of a slip.

Here we encountered a biting bitter wind. Peter Baumann cut magnificent steps, at least he and Rubi did between them, the one improving on the other's first rough blows. After Rubi came Chaytor with Kauffmann behind him, then the Guv, and then myself, the tail of the string. Each step was a long lift from the last one, and as the snow was shallow they had to be cut in the ice which was like rock on this last slope.

Suddenly there burst upon us, on lifting our heads over the ridge, the green and cheerful valleys of Lauterbrunnen and Interlaken, of Grindelwald and a distant view of others equally beautiful stretching on for ever in one vast panorama. On the other side in grim contrast there was a wild and even awful scene. One gazed about one and tried in vain to see to the bottom of dark yawning abysses and sheer cliffs of ice or rock.

Tourism
Named after the Jungfrau, the Jungfrau Region of the Bernese Oberland is a major tourist destination in the Alps and includes a large number of railways and other facilities. While the mountain peak was once difficult to access, the Jungfrau Railway, a rack railway, now goes to the Jungfraujoch railway station at 3454 m, therefore providing an easy access to the upper Aletsch Glacier and a relatively short access to the Jungfrau itself, the height difference between the station and the summit being only 704 metres and the horizontal distance being slightly less than 2 kilometres. As a result, in the popular mind, the Jungfrau has become a mountain associated with the Bernese Oberland and Interlaken, rather than with Upper Valais and Fiesch.

In 1893, Adolf Guyer-Zeller conceived of the idea of a railway tunnel to the Jungfraujoch to make the glaciated areas on its south side more accessible. The building of the tunnel took 16 years and the summit station was not opened before 1912. The goal was in fact to reach the summit of the Jungfrau with an elevator from the highest railway station, located inside the mountain. The complete project was not realized because of the outbreak of the World War I. Nevertheless, it was at the time one of the highest railways in the world and remains today the highest in Europe and the only (non-cable) railway on Earth going well past the perennial snow-line.

The Jungfrau Railway leaves from Kleine Scheidegg, which can be reached from both sides by trains from Grindelwald, and Lauterbrunnen via Wengen. The train enters the Jungfrau Tunnel running eastward through the Eiger just above Eigergletscher, which is, since 2020, also accessible by aerial tramway from Grindelwald. Before arriving at the Jungfraujoch, it stops for a few minutes at two other stations, Eigerwand (on the north face of the Eiger) and Eismeer (on the south side), where passengers can see through the holes excavated from the mountain. The journey from Kleine Scheidegg to Jungfraujoch takes approximately 50 minutes including the stops; the downhill return journey taking only 35 minutes.

A large complex of tunnels and buildings has been constructed at the Jungfraujoch, referred to as the "Top of Europe". There are several restaurants and bars, shops, multimedia exhibitions, a post office, and a research station with dedicated accommodation facilities. An elevator enables access to the top of the Sphinx and its observatory, at 3571 m, the highest viewing platform of the area. Outside, at the level of the Jungfraujoch, there is a ski school, and the "Ice Palace", a collection of elaborate ice sculptures displayed inside the Aletsch Glacier. Another tunnel leads to the east side of the Sphinx, where one can walk on the glacier up to the Mönchsjoch Hut, the only hotel infrastructure in the area.

Apart from the Jungfraujoch, many facilities have been built in the Jungfrau Region, including numerous mountain railways. In 1908, the first public cable car in the world, the Wetterhorn Elevator, opened at the foot of the Wetterhorn, but was closed seven years later. The Schilthorn above Mürren, the Männlichen above Wengen, and the Schynige Platte above Wilderswil, offer good views of the Jungfrau and the Lauterbrunnen valley. On the south side, the Eggishorn above Fiesch also offers views of the Jungfrau, across the Aletsch Glacier.

Climbing routes
The normal route follows the traces of the first climbers, but the long approach on the Aletsch Glacier is no longer necessary. From the area of the Jungfraujoch the route to the summit takes only a few hours. Most climbers start from the Mönchsjoch Hut. After a traverse of the Jungfraufirn the route heads to the Rottalsattel (3885 m), from where the southern ridge leads to the Jungfrau. It is not considered a very difficult climb but it can be dangerous on the upper section above the Rottalsattel, where most accidents happen. The use of the Jungfrau Railway instead of the much more gradual approach from Fiesch (or Fieschertal), via the Konkordia Hut, can cause some acclimatization troubles as the difference of altitude between the railway stations of Interlaken and Jungfraujoch is almost 3 km.

title: Jungfrau