If you are walking around campus this summer, stop by the Discovery Building to see a plaque near the corner of Randall Ave. and Johnson St. that commemorates an important partnership.

In 1953, Norman E. Borlaug and M.S. Swaminathan met at Rennebohm’s Drug Store (which used to occupy the location where the Discovery Building now stands) during a genetics workshop held by CALS. Swaminathan invited Borlaug to South Asia, generating a collaboration that sparked the Green Revolution. 

The plaque in the Discovery Building marks the birthplace of the Green Revolution and commemorates the scientists’ contributions during an intense period of food production and hunger reduction. 

During the 2022 World Food Prize Wisconsin Youth Institute, Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize organization and former U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia, presented the plaque honoring Borlaug and Swaminathan.