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| Padma Shree Dr Sanjaya Rajaram |
Kenneth M. Quinn, President of the world Food Prize Foundation today (18th June 2014) announced that The World Food Prize Borlaug Centennial Laureate – born in India and a citizen of Mexico – is Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram.
The 2014 World Food Prize Laureate is an individual from India who worked closely with Dr. Borlaug in Mexico and who then carried forward and extended his work, breaking new ground with his own achievements. As the head of CIMMYT’s wheat-breeding program for several decades, our Laureate developed 480 high-yielding disease- and stress-resistant
wheat varieties that have been grown on 58 million hectares in 51 countries, thus increasing world wheat production by more than 200 million tons. Norman Borlaug himself described our Laureate as “a scientist of great vision who has made a significant contribution to the improvement of world wheat production, working for the benefit of hundreds of thousands of farmers in countries across the globe.” mentioned Kenneth Quinn at The World Food Prize 2014 Laureate Announcement Ceremony.
Our 2014 @WorldFoodPrize Laureate hails from #India & spent his life working on #wheat at @CIMMYT in #Mexico! pic.twitter.com/XGip2wUezX
— World Food Prize (@WorldFoodPrize) June 18, 2014
The $250,000 World Food Prize to Dr. Rajaramwill be presented in Des Moines during a symposium to be be held on October 15-17 on the topic of The Greatest Challenge in Human History: Can We Sustainably Feed the 9 Billion People Who Will Be on Our Planet by the Year 2050.
As reported by The Des Mines Register, Rajaram said he will use most of the prize money to update machinery he uses to breed plants at his lab in Toluca, Mexico, and help the poor in his native India get an education.
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