The 2014 World Food Price Laureate is the eminent
Plant Scientist Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram for his scientific research that led to a
prodigious increase in world wheat production – by more than 200 million tons –
building upon the successes of the Green Revolution. Dr. Rajaram’s crossing of
winter and spring wheat varieties, led to his development of plants that have
higher yields and dependability under a wide range of environments around the
world.
His breakthrough breeding technologies have had a
far-reaching and significant impact in providing more nutritious food around
the globe and alleviating world hunger. Dr. Rajaram succeeded Dr. NormanBorlaug in leading CIMMYT's wheat breeding program, and developed an astounding 480 wheat varieties that
have been released in 51 countries on six continents and have been widely
adopted by small- and large-scale farmers alike.
Realizing the importance of freely sharing
knowledge to provide developing countries with the ability to grow more food,
Rajaram launched efforts to expand the global scientific wheat network – a
worldwide exchange of genetic resources, information and innovations among
researchers – which had not been done before. This led to the accelerated
development and worldwide spread of high-yielding wheat varieties, which has
kept the expansion of global wheat production ahead of population growth and
made wheat even more accessible to the world’s poor. He also realized the
importance of nutrition to the poor and strongly supported research on
micronutrient-enriched wheat varieties.
In 2007, Dr. Borlaug expressed high praise for
Rajaram in a personal note: “You have developed into the greatest present-day
wheat scientist in the world…have made and continue to make many important
contributions to further improve world wheat production…have learned to work
effectively in many different countries with political leaders of different
ideologies…and are a scientist of great vision.”
Respect to this great Scientist#
