iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
The world-renowned Indian American soil scientist, Dr. Rattan Lal, who was awarded the 2020 World Food Prize Laureate, has been appointed as a member of the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD) by the US President Joe Biden.
Established in 1975, BIFAD advises the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on agriculture, higher education issues and food insecurity in developing countries.
Biden’s intent to appoint Dr. Lal, a Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science and Director of the CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration at The Ohio State University (OSU), in a key role was announced by the White House on Jan 14.
His work involves developing a soil-centric approach to increasing food production that not only restores and conserves natural resources but mitigates climate change.
His research and development of soil-saving techniques have benefitted millions of small-scale farmers, improved food and nutritional security of more than two billion people, and saved hundreds of millions of hectares of natural tropical ecosystems.
Growing up on a small farm in India, Lal witnessed the challenges of plowing land. His experiences on a subsistence farm first inspired his curiosity about soil health. He became committed to researching soil, and completed his Master in Science at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute and his Ph.D. in Soils at The Ohio State University.
Dr. Lal, 77, is also Adjunct Professor of the University of Iceland and of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, as well as a Visiting Professor at Pontifical Catholic University, according to his White House profile.
He is widely recognized as a pioneer in soil-centric agricultural management to improve food security globally and develop climate-resilient agriculture through soil carbon management and sequestration, sustainable management of soils, and soil health.
Dr. Lal served as President of the World Association of the Soil and Water Conservation (1987-1990), the International Soil Tillage Research Organization (1988-1991), the Soil Science Society of America (2005-2007), and the International Union of Soil Sciences (2017-2018).
He is Chair in Soil Science and Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development Issues of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture.
Dr. Lal has received several awards for his work, including the 2020 World Food Prize for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production that conserves natural resources and mitigates climate change.
Lal has traveled all over the world studying tropical soils. In each country, he found farmers struggling with problems of soil degradation, just as his own once had.
With nutrient-depleting farming practices and agricultural cultivation that exposed the soil to harsh tropical climates, even high-yielding crop varieties could not reach their full growth potential.
According to Dr. Lal, global food productivity cannot be sustained by ignoring the health of the soil. Policy makers are slowly beginning to recognize that soil is the foundation on which, Lal says, “sustainable agriculture should be based, and without it the global issues of climate change and food security cannot be [adequately] addressed.”
Three separate United Nations Climate Change Conferences adopted his strategy of restoring soil health as a means to sequestering carbon.
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 Nobel Prize.
