Indian-American soil scientist Dr. Rattan Lal honored with
the prestigious World Food Prize 2020.
Dr. Lal has been awarded this prize for contributing to
increasing the global food supply by helping small farmers to improve soil
quality.
The World Food Prize Foundation said in a statement on
Thursday that Rattan Lal has spread across four continents and has spent
the last five decades in his career.
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| Dr. Rattan Lal, an Indian-American soil scientist |
Indian-American Soil Scientist Dr. Rattan Lal Wins
Prestigious World Food Prize
Washington, Jun 12
(PTI): Indian-American
soil scientist Dr. Rattan Lal has been honored with the prestigious World Food
Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in agriculture. He has been
awarded this prize (#FoodPrize20) for contributing to increasing the global food supply
by helping small farmers to improve soil quality.
The World
Food Prize Foundation said in a statement on Thursday that Dr. Lal has spread
across four continents and benefited the livelihoods of more than 50 crore
small farmers by promoting innovative techniques to preserve soil quality in
his career spanning over five decades.
This technique has improved food and nutritional security of more than two billion
people and has protected crores of hectares of natural tropical ecosystems.
The Iowa-based foundation said, "Dr. Rattan Lal, an Indian-American soil
scientist, will be given the 2020 World Food Prize, for developing a
soil-centric approach to increasing food production and mainstreaming Indian
food and to keep natural resources intact and protected from climate change”.
Dr. Lal said
in an interview with PTI-Bhasha after the announcement, “Soil Science will get
recognition from this award. I am very happy about it. "
He said that
this award is especially important because the first recipient of this prestigious
award in 1987 was Indian agricultural scientist Dr. MS Swaminathan who was the
father of the Indian Green Revolution.
He said that
due to harsh climatic conditions, there is a high possibility of soil quality
deterioration in a country like India.
Dr. Lal
said, "So the award to the Soil Scientist shows the importance of
maintaining and managing the quality of the soil. We need to pay more
attention to Mother Earth. Our scriptures and Puranas also say that we should
respect Mother Earth. So this award is very important to me.