Indian-American Soil Scientist Dr. Rattan Lal Wins Prestigious World Food Prize

Washington:  Indian-American soil scientist, Dr. Rattan Lal has received the prestigious World Food Prize for his soil-centric approach towards increasing ‘food production and mitigating climate change’, PTI reported.

The first recipient of this prestigious award in 1987 was Indian agricultural scientist Dr. M S Swaminathan, the father of India’s Green Revolution. World Food Prize is considered to be equivalent to a Nobel Prize in agriculture.

Dr. Lal’s contribution for more than five decades across four continents has promoted innovative soil-saving techniques benefiting the livelihoods of more than 500 million small farmers. This further improved the food and nutritional security of more than two billion people and saved numerous millions of hectares of natural tropical ecosystems, said a statement by the World Food Prize Foundation, PTI further reported.

Dr. Rattan Lal, a native of India and a citizen of the United States is a Distinguished Professor in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) at Ohio State University. He is also the founding director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center in CFAES at Ohio State.