Leading nutrition expert Dr. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted was announced as the 2021 World Food Prize Laureate for her achievements in pioneering fish-based food systems to improve nutrition, health and livelihoods for millions around the world.
- She has become the first woman of Asian heritage to receive the $250,000 award for unlocking the benefits of fish for diets, health and livelihoods across the Global South.
- She was the first to establish that many small fish species commonly eaten across Southeast Asia are an important source of essential micronutrients and fatty acids and improve the absorption of nutrients in plant-based foods, reshaping scientific understanding of the benefits of fish in diets.
- In Bangladesh, where her research on fish began with long-term support from Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA), Dr. Thilsted’s fish-based approach is now recognized as more cost-effective at supplying nutrients than vegetable gardening, prompting the government to promote pond polyculture as a means of tackling malnutrition.
- This approach has also helped Bangladesh become the fifth largest aquaculture producer in the world.
About World Food Prize
- The World Food Prize is awarded by World Food Prize Foundation for a specific, exceptionally significant, individual achievement that advances human development with a demonstrable increase in the quantity, quality, availability of, or access to food through creative interventions at any point within the full scope of the food system.
