The Foundation's youth programs are widely recognized as the only youth programs of their kind in the United States and globally. Lal identified and promoted land-use and soil management practices tailored to each region of the world to effectively restore soil health and avoid soil degradation. World Food Programme 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, working to save and change … The World Food Prize Norman Borlaug Field Award Norman Borlaug Medallion Nominations Webinar Laureates International Reach 2020 Lal 2010-2019 Laureates 2000-2009 Laureates 1987-1999 Laureates The World Food Prize has come to be known as the "Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture". From his humble beginnings as a refugee growing up on a small subsistence farm in India, his determination to learn and succeed in school propelled him to become one of the world’s foremost soil scientists. Lal looked after the family’s small herd of cattle. The 2020 Borlaug-Ruan international interns: Rattan Lal estimates he was born in 1944 in the small farming village of Karyal in West Punjab, India. “It is a privilege and honor to be of service to the many small farmers from around the world because I was one of them. “If soils are not restored, crops will fail even if rains do not...and humanity will suffer even with great scientific strides. All Rights Reserved. Barbara Stinson assumed leadership of the World Food Prize Foundation in January of 2020, taking over for longtime World Food Prize leader Kenneth Quinn. Lal recognized this potential for soil to act as an enormous carbon sink to slow the increase of atmospheric carbon and stymie global climate change. Lal’s proposals on soil health closely tie into four of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These experiences awakened him to the importance of considering the social and cultural issues in farmers’ lives as well as the agricultural and environmental. Congratulations to Dr. Rattan Lal of India and the United States, the 2020 World Food Prize … at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in Delhi, Lal went on to do just that. In 1970 Norman E. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for a lifetime of work to feed a hungry world. Sitemap. The World Food Programme (WFP) has won the 2020 Nobel peace prize for its efforts to combat hunger and to improve conditions for peace in conflict areas.. The World Food Prize statewide youth institute is an innovative model that seeks to engage and inspire high school students to pursue STEM career paths relating to agriculture and global food security. Land degradation is projected to give rise to hundreds of thousands of soil refugees in Asia and Africa in the coming decades. — The World Food Prize (@WorldFoodPrize) June 11, 2020 The World Food Prize Foundation President Barbara Stinson announced Lal as the winner in an online ceremony in … In this approach, he reconciled two seemingly opposing elements: the need for increased food production with the necessity of restoring soil, water and air quality. India and the united States Dr. Rattan Lal, native of India and a citizen of the United States, will receive the 2020 World Food Prize for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production that restores and conserves natural … CGIAR science and innovation are crucial to improving global food systems. Prior accolades recognizing Dr. Lal for the exceptional energy and insight he applies to the crusade for conservation around the world include the Japan Prize (2019), the GCHERA World Agriculture Prize (2018), the Glinka World Soil Prize (2018), the Liebig Award (2006), and in India, the Swaminathan Award (2009) and the Norman Borlaug Award (2005). View recordings from the 2020 Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium from October 12-16, 2020, which took place virtually. “As long as you are consuming the natural resources - food, water, elements - coming from the soil, you owe it to soil to put something back, to give something back, whatever you can.”. The World Food Prize is awarded 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. They were now not only the foundation for increasing the quality and quantity of food and preserving natural ecosystems, but an important part of mitigating climate change as well. There he established the Carbon Management & Sequestration Center in 2000. In 2020, the World Food Prize was awarded to Dr. Rattan Lal of India and the United States. Des Moines, While Lal is one of the most prolific agricultural scientists with more than 100,000 citations of his vast corpus of published work, he recognizes the importance of translating science into action. Cslaught wrote a review Feb 2020. Through his innovative work on agricultural eco-intensification, Lal not only introduced the concept of soil physical health and resilience as an effective strategy for meeting the farming challenges of a changing climate, but also identified the promise soil holds for carbon sequestration efforts. Though the ideal proportion of soil carbon in the root zone is about 2 percent, many tropical soils now hold less than 0.1 percent. Because of Lal’s leadership in linking soil carbon to climate change, three separate United Nations Climate Change Conferences adopted his strategy of restoring soil health as a means to sequestering carbon. Lal's approach uniquely pointed out that the physical health of soil is, in fact, essential to enhancing irrigation and fertilizer efficiency; only 30 percent or less of irrigation water and fertilizer applied in depleted soils reached crops. Contact World Food Prize. The World Food Programme (WFP) is the food-assistance branch of the United Nations.It is the world's largest humanitarian organization, the largest one focused on hunger and food security, and the largest provider of school meals. The World Food Prize Norman Borlaug Field Award Norman Borlaug Medallion Nominations Webinar Laureates International Reach 2020 Lal 2010-2019 Laureates 2000-2009 Laureates 1987-1999 Laureates The World Food Prize is an international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world. The agricultural practices Lal advocated are now at the heart of efforts to improve agriculture systems in the tropics and globally. As soils also provide essential environmental services such as retaining rainwater, filtering pollutants and providing habitat for all manner of organisms, it is all the more important for societies to manage soils sustainably. Lal epitomizes Dr. Borlaug’s philosophy that science is meaningless if it does not serve humanity. Lal had the chance to study soils more upon entering Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana after earning a scholarship for graduating at the top of his class from his two-room school in Rajaund in 1959. Starting in 1970 at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria, Lal began addressing the issue of soil erosion and degradation in sub-Saharan Africa. Lal and his wife, Sukhvarsha S. Lal, remained in Nigeria for eighteen years, where their four children were born and they weathered the end of a civil war and three government coups. Lal’s investigation revealed that low soil carbon and organic matter combined with harsh tropical climates and nutrient-depleting farming practices posed a major barrier to reaching the soil’s productive potential. That’s what soil health means, soil is life. The World Food Programme (WFP) has been praised by world leaders and humanitarian groups after it was awarded 2020's Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee decided to confer the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize to the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP). At the time, attending school in the United States hardly seemed possible, but after earning his M.Sc. By establishing long-term experiments throughout the tropics, he popularized the practice of conservation agriculture in regions of harsh climates and fragile soils. Thus, several world regions, including sub-Saharan Africa, missed out on harnessing the full benefits of Dr. Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution technology. And yet this material which is hidden beneath the surface of the earth is underappreciated, not recognized,” Lal said. This in turn improved the long-term sustainability of agroecosystems and minimized the risks to farmers of droughts, floods, and other effects of a changing climate. Deadline: May 1, 2021. His pioneering research on the restoration of soil health in Africa, Asia and Latin America led to revelations that impacted agricultural yields, natural resource conservation and climate change mitigation. All Rights Reserved. The agency was given the prize for its efforts to combat hunger and improve conditions for peace. He completed his high school assignments by the light of a kerosene lamp in the evening. The Nobel Peace Prize 2020 was awarded to World Food Programme (WFP) "for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a … fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, energy) or the land area used to grow crops, Lal’s experimentation and efforts presented sustainable agricultural intensification practices boosting food production while decreasing the amount of land and increasing the efficiency of the inputs used to cultivate it. In 2007, he was among those recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize Certificate for his contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports when the IPCC was named co-recipient of the Prize. He is the first at Ohio State to receive the award. When his research was published in Science in 2004, it garnered worldwide attention. They departed and resettled as refugees in Rajaund, Haryana, India, about 100 miles northwest of Delhi. This breakthrough research transformed the way the world saw soils. United Nations World Food Program wins the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Published Fri, Oct 9 2020 5:04 AM EDT Updated Fri, Oct 9 2020 9:36 AM EDT Vicky McKeever @vmckeevercnbc Soil contains 1,550 gigatons of organic carbon in soil organic matter, as well as 750 gigatons of inorganic carbon, which adds up to three times the amount of atmospheric carbon. As of 2019, it served 97 million people in 88 countries, the largest since … He recalls watching his father, uncle and brother plowing the fields with oxen in temperatures reaching above 45 Celsius (>110 °F). Pope Francis met with David M. Beasley, the executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020. Dr. Rattan Lal, native of India and a citizen of the United States, will receive the 2020 World Food Prize for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production that restores and conserves natural resources and mitigates climate change. All Rights Reserved. Founded in 1961, it is headquartered in Rome and has offices in 80 countries. “Soils of the world must be part of any agenda to address climate change, as well as food and water security,” said Lal. In 1965, he boarded a plane for the first time and traveled more than 7,000 miles to OSU to pursue his Ph.D. under the mentorship of Prof. George S. Taylor. 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