President Biden Names Rattan Lal as Member of the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development
- The Indian American is widely recognized as a pioneer in soil-centric agricultural management to improve food security globally and develop climate-resilient agriculture.
President Joe Biden has appointed Indian American soil scientist and professor Rattan Lal as a member of the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD). It advises USAID on agriculture and higher education issues pertinent to food insecurity in developing countries.
Lal, whose career in science spans five decades and five continents, currently serves as Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science and founding Director of the Carbon Management & Sequestration Center at the Ohio State University (OSU).
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.
He is a recipient of 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. The international award, presented by the World Food Foundation, recognizes the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world.
In 2019, Last year, Lal won the 2019 Japan Prize, considered one of the most prestigious honors in science and technology. The prize recognizes scientists and engineers from around the world for original and outstanding achievements that “not only contribute to the advancement of science and technology but also promote peace and prosperity for all mankind.”
Other awards include the Glinka World Soil Prize from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Agriculture Prize from the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Lal has served as president of the World Association of the Soil and Water Conservation, the International Soil Tillage Research Organization, the Soil Science Society of America, and the International Union of Soil Sciences. He is the chair in Soil Science and Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development Issues of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture
Lal received his B.S. from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana; M.S. from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and Ph.D. from the Ohio State University.
(Top photo, courtesy World Food Prize)