Borlaug spent years in Mexican wheat fields breeding varieties that resisted disease and didn't fall over when they grew heavy with grain. Unglamorous, slow, physical work.
In the 1960s India and Pakistan were expected to face mass famine. His seeds were shipped over, through war and bureaucracy, and within a few years wheat output had nearly doubled. The predicted famine never came.
He's criticized now for what the Green Revolution did to soil and water, and some of that is fair. But it's hard to argue with the number of people who got to eat.