Not sure how large the contributions of Norman Borlaug are but the work of Fritz Haber (also was unfortunately also responsible for weaponizing chemistry) and Carl Bosch enabled mass-production of artifical (nitrogen) fertilizer.
About 50% of the world population depend on crops produced with artificial fertilizers. They enabled billions of people to live at all. In my opinion they are setting the bar quite high.
"Then, in 1909, German chemist Fritz Haber successfully fixed atmospheric nitrogen in a laboratory.[6][7] This success had extremely attractive military, industrial and agricultural applications. In 1913, barely five years later, a research team from BASF, led by Carl Bosch, developed the first industrial-scale application of the Haber process, sometimes called the Haber-Bosch process.[8][9]"
First extraction was 110 years ago, then it was industrialized 106 years ago.
That means they are out for
"anybody in the last hundred years" just barely.
It's amazing to think of how much change they enabled in the last 103 years.
Roughly as I understand it Haber-Bosh process enabled us to get to the billions (e.g. 1B & 2B). Norm Borlaug, & the green revolution which he helped start, built on top of fertilizer & enabled the next couple billions.
About 50% of the world population depend on crops produced with artificial fertilizers. They enabled billions of people to live at all. In my opinion they are setting the bar quite high.