Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug spoke to a packed Sun Room crowd Tuesday at the Memorial Union about the continuing effort to feed the world’s people.

The lecture was the first annual speech to be named after Borlaug.

In his talk, “Feeding a World of Ten Billion People: Our 21st Century Challenge,” Borlaug spoke about his work to advance food production.

Borlaug, from Cresco, sparked the Green Revolution, a social movement that transformed agricultural production and developed new wheat varieties in Mexico and Asia.

“The job remains big,” Borlaug said.

“When you can trigger enthusiasm … it’s amazing what you can do.”

Borlaug said he is concerned about Africa because of its increasing population and decreasing application of improved technology. He said this can be attributed to erosion and low soil fertility there.

He also spoke about using organic and chemical fertilizers to combat soil problems. He said he was in favor of using all the organic fertilizer available, but there isn’t enough.

“Don’t give the world the impression we can feed 6.2 billion with organic fertilizer,” he said.

Borlaug said $850 billion is spent worldwide on military equipment, although very little is spent on agricultural technology. He also said 56 percent of the poor countries in Africa are in some kind of social, economic or political struggle, which directly affects their degree of misery and poverty.

“If you want peace and stability we’d better be concerned with what’s happening in the Third World nations,” Borlaug said.

Jason Nicholson, freshman in mechanical engineering, said he attended the lecture as part of a class.

“That man has been in education for over 60 years and I’m just blown away,” Nicholson said. “He’s a man that you would want to be under as a mentor — he has so much knowledge.”

Borlaug said there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom, and said it is important for individuals to learn from each other.

Borlaug ended his speech with a quote from Will Rogers, “We’re all ignorant. The only difference is that we’re ignorant about different things.”