Renowned Indian-American agricultural soil scientist and an alumnus of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) Dr Rattan Lal (76), has been declared the winner of the World Food Prize 2020.
The announcement was made by World Food Prize Foundation president Barbara Stinson in an online ceremony from Washington on June 11.
Dr. Lal serves as Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science and is the founding Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at The Ohio State University (OSU).
He is the second person from Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) to win World Food Prize. The honour was earlier won by PAU alumnus Dr Gurdev Singh Khush, a plant breeder and pioneer in rice genetics.
He has been awarded for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production that conserves natural resources and mitigates climate change.
According to the World Food Prize Foundation, Lal has in his career of over 50 years and across four continents promoted innovative soil-saving techniques that benefited the livelihoods of more than 500 million smallholder farmers, improved the food and nutritional security of more than two billion people and saved hundreds of millions of hectares of natural tropical ecosystems.
The World Food Prize was founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug in 1986. The World Food Prize foundation that awards the $250,000 prize is based in Des Moines. The annual award recognizes contributions in any field involved in the world food supply.
