COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — Julie Borlaug’s grandfather had a saying: Take it to the farmers.

“Innovation is of no use if it sits on the shelf. It needs to get to the farmer, and it’s the farmer who will tell you what innovations are needed,” said Borlaug, president of the Borlaug Foundation and vice president of corporate communications and public relations for Invaio Sciences.

Her grandfather was Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, considered the father of the Green Revolution. He developed high-yielding semi-dwarf wheat varieties that eliminated the problem of plants collapsing under the weight of heavier, taller stalks.

The discovery is credited with saving billions of people from dying of starvation. Norman Borlaug died in 2009.

Julie Borlaug has her own message for farmers: Take it to the public.

“The only way we’re going to achieve what we’re capable of in agriculture is getting public support,” she said.

Farmers need to talk about sustainability and climate in a way that the public pays attention, instead of emphasizing productivity, which, for them, means more fertilizer and inputs, she said.

“Use the buzzwords of ‘sustainability’ and ‘the environment,’ and you can craft the same argument or make your points, but we have to do it in a way that the public is understanding,” she said.

Consumer preferences and the minority voice of organizations such as Greenpeace seem to be the loudest when influencing members of Congress, she said.

“When you’re in Washington, D.C., go educate these people,” she said. “They’re going to be putting the laws in the farm bill and policies in place, and they need to listen to the farmer, not the mommy or daddy blogger, or the nutrition-consultant-yoga instructor who has an online diploma and knows nothing about agriculture,” she said. “We’re up against that. … We have a new strand of fact-resistant humans.”

In her speech, Borlaug thanked the farmers gathered.

“I don’t think you ever get thanked enough,” she said. “I’m working very hard at the World Food Prize to have farmers on stage. The farmer is the reason why the world is fed.”

Norman Borlaug helped start the World Food Prize, which recognizes contributions in any field involved in the world food supply.

She also shared memories of her grandfather, including the time Borlaug received the Congressional Gold Medal.

“He had two minutes to speak … all the leaders were there,” she said. “His two-minute remarks went on for 15 minutes.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s team frantically signaled Julie Borlaug to get her grandfather to stop talking. Julie Borlaug tried signaling her mom, then finally leaned forward to ask President George W. Bush if he could stop her grandfather, maybe even stand up to get some music to start playing.

“(President Bush) leaned back and said, ‘This isn’t my show,’” she recalled. “And then my grandfather started on fertile seeds of ‘ism,’ terrorism, and how agriculture played a part (in combatting terrorism created by hunger), and Bush leaned back and said, ‘Don’t stop him now.’”

Borlaug was treated around the world as a “god of agriculture,” she said, but not everyone fully appreciated his contributions. She and her twin took their grandfather for “show and tell” in the third grade.

“No kid was interested in him or who he was,” she said. “He was upstaged by a hamster. I thought it was a learning lesson for him.”

Wheat farmers hold a special place in her heart because of her grandfather’s work, she said.

She is the only one of five grandchildren involved in agriculture, she said.

“We always joked with my grandfather that we didn’t want to achieve more than he did, so we left agriculture to him,” she said.

She got involved in ag advocacy through her work with people in need in Central America, South America, Africa and Asia.

“One out of every four children globally is stunted, and that can be through lack of food, especially in the first thousand days from the time the mother is pregnant onward,” she said. “… I know we can fix it, I know we have the capability. It’s just, how do we change the food system?”

She’s also worked with small-scale farmers in Africa.

“I often talk to people who think Africa should do it organically and not go with fertilizer,” she said. “They have been doing it organically, and it’s not working.”

She has worked with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Howard Buffett, a farmer and son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who have provided vaccinations and medications to Africans.

“They quickly realized if you’re starving, none of that does any good, so they came back and started with agriculture,” she said.

Borlaug promised her grandfather she would continue his legacy in ag advocacy, through communications and giving farmers a voice.

“If we care about sustainability, we care about agriculture,” she said. “If we care about gender rights internationally, we care about agriculture. And equality, transfer of technology, whether that’s our innovative seeds or gene editing or data or basic extension, we care about agriculture.”

Julie Borlaug spoke to the Tri-State Grain Growers Convention Dec. 1 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.