1st World Agriculture Prize Award

1st World Agriculture Prize Award

Presentation of 1st World Agriculture Prize to the Father of Green Revolution in India, Prof. MS Swaminathan presented by Hon’ble Vice-President of India, Sh. M. Venkaiah Naidu.

Presentation of Cheque @ $ 100,000

Presentation of Cheque @ $ 100,000

A cheque $ 100,000 presented to Prof. MS Swaminathan as a part of World Agriculture Prize by Shri Suresh Prabhu, Hon’ble Commerce Minister of India.

World Agriculture

Prize

The World Agriculture prize recognizes the individuals and prize institutions with exceptionally significant and globally impacting achievements in the field of agriculture, including but not limited to: breeding, food production, plant and animal science; food science and technology; nutrition; rural development; water and the environment; natural resource conservation; bio based products, social organization and poverty elimination; finance, investments or budgetary allocations; policy, industry and agribusiness, programs or economic interventions; and public advocacy. The next prize will be presented on Nov 5, 2019 in New Delhi, preceded by a special session, named “Swaminathan Global Dialogue on Climate Change and Food Security”, as part of the World Agriculture Summit and AgroWorld 2019 in New Delhi. The special session on Climate change and food security has been incepted with a thought to invite the laureates of food and agriculture world to participate in the World Agriculture Prize event and deliberate on this burning issue to come out with a blue print for climate resilient agriculture in a sustainable manner to safeguard the interests of our future generations.

Nomination

Criteria

The nominee must establish exceptionally significant and globally impacting achievements, which resulted in a demonstrable increase in the quantity, quality or availability of food for a substantial number of people or improvement in quality of life of farmers or rural masses. The impact of this achievements must be measurable, quantifiable, or otherwise demonstrated either in terms of increased production or productivity, reduced cost of cultivation, improved return on investments, reduced poverty, hunger or suffering; or enhanced health, nutrition, quality of life and well-being. While evaluating significance of the individual achievements as well as complexity of the problem solved will be the important aspects to be considered. The person may be nationally and internationally recognized for the transformational change happened with the interventions or work achievements. The prize will be awarded to one person or one institution only and the nominee must be in good state of health to attend the award ceremony to receive the prize personally.

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Selection

Procedure

For the application to be considered, nominations with all seconding and supporting documents must be submitted by 15th September of the year. Incomplete nominations will not be considered. After reviewing the nominations for appropriateness and completeness, they will be forwarded to the Selection Committee. The Selection Committee then reviews the nominations and recommends the recipient and first alternate it deems most worthy for the award. The Selection Committee is composed of a panel of distinguished individuals who are knowledgeable about various aspects of plant science, agricultural production, policy and economic scenario, nutrition, food processing, water and the environment.

About The 1st

World Agriculture Prize Laureate

Professor M S Swaminathan has been acclaimed by the TIME magazine as one of the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century and one of the only three from India, the other two being Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. He has been described by the United Nations Environment Programme as "the Father of Economic Ecology" because of his leadership of the ever-green revolution movement in agriculture and by Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary General of the United Nations, as "a living legend who will go into the annals of history as a world scientist of rare distinction". He was Chairman of the UN Science Advisory Committee set up in 1980 to take follow-up action on the Vienna Plan of Action. He has also served as Independent Chairman of the FAO Council (1981-85) and President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (1984-90). He was President of the World Wide Fund for Nature (India) from 1989-96. He also served as President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (2002-07), President of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1991-96 and 2005-07) and Chairman, National Commission on Farmers (2004-06). He was a trustee of Bibliotheca Alexandrina in its formative years. He served as Director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (1961-72), Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (1972-79), Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture (1979-80), Acting Deputy Chairman and later Member (Science and Agriculture), Planning Commission (1980-82) and Director General, International Rice Research Institute, the Philippines (1982-88). A plant geneticist by training, Professor Swaminathan's contributions to the agricultural renaissance of India have led to his being widely referred to as the scientific leader of the green revolution movement. His advocacy of sustainable agriculture leading to an ever-green revolution makes him an acknowledged world leader in the field of sustainable food security. The International Association of Women and Development conferred on him the first international award for significant contributions to promoting the knowledge, skill, and technological empowerment of women in agriculture and for his pioneering role in mainstreaming gender considerations in agriculture and rural development. Professor Swaminathan was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1971, the Albert Einstein World Science Award in 1986, the first World Food Prize in 1987, and Volvo, Tyler and UNEP Sasakawa Prize for Environment, the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development in 2000 and the Franklin D Roosevelt Four Freedoms Medal, the Mahatma Gandhi Prize of UNESCO in 2000 and the Lal Bahadur Sastri National Award (2007). He is the recipient of Padma Shri (1967), Padma Bhushan (1972) and Padma Vibushan (1989). Professor Swaminathan is a Fellow of many of the leading scientific academies of India and the world, including the Royal Society of London and the US National Academy of Sciences. He has received 73 honorary doctorate degrees from universities around the world. The most recent honorary DSc Degree is from the University of Faislabad, Pakistan, which is one of the oldest Agricultural Universities in the sub-continent. He currently holds the UNESCO Chair in Ecotechnology at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai (Madras), India. He was a Member of the Parliament of India (Rajya Sabha), during 2007-13. During 2010-13, he chaired the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) for the World Committee on Food Security (CFS). He also Chairs the Task Force set up by the Ministry of External Affairs to oversee the projects undertaken in Afghanistan and Myanmar in the field of agriculture. During 2013, Prof Swaminathan received the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration and Greatest Global Living Legend Award of NDTV. He was also elected at the 20th International Congress of Nutrition held at Granada, Spain, “as Living Legend of International Union of Nutrition Sciences”. He received the Life Time Achievement Award at the 9th Nutra Summit in Bangalore.

Swaminathan Global Dialogue on

Climate Change and Food Security

The Chief Guest, Mr. Suresh Prabhu, Hon'ble Commerce Minister of India addressing the 1st Global Dialogue on Climate Change and Food Security on Oct 25, 2019 as part of the 1st World Agriculture Prize in New Delhi. The Special Session was presided over by His Excellency, Mr. P. Sathasivam, Hon’ble Governor of Kerala. Seen from L to R: Mr. Alok Sinha, DG, ICFA, Prof. Rudy Rabbinge, Food Security Advisor to the Government of Netherlands, Ms. Christina Dougherty, Global Vice President, Pepsico, H.E. Mr. P. Sathasivam, Hon'ble Governor of Kerala, Dr. Purvi Mehta, Asia Lead – Agriculture, Bill & Milinda Gates Foundation, H.E. Mr. Kinzang Dorji, Hon'ble former Prime Minister of Bhutan and Dr. MJ Khan, Chairman, ICFA.

Background

Note

Agriculture has been the foremost engagement of human beings since their existence and will continue to be imperative given the fact that food is necessary for survival. The shift in lifestyle of humans from their nomadic way of life to the settled way of life has become possible due to development and adoption of early agriculture practices. In this journey of transformation from famine to food sufficiency, certain individuals and institutions played critical roles. Still there is a long way to go in making the planet free from hunger and malnutrition. Developing and underdeveloped nations in order to boost food production, need cooperation, collaboration and learning of global experiences.

India has come a long way from the pre-Green Revolution days of ‘ship to mouth’ to a situation now, where selfsufficiency has been achieved in almost all areas of agriculture production. Over the years, India has taken leadership position in the world agriculture and is now is in a position to benefit the developing world with its experiences and diversity of learning through Green Revolution in food production, White Revolution in milk production and Pink Revolution in horticulture production.

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Global Awards Jury of

World Agriculture Prize

MS Swaminathan Ibrahim Mayaki ANN Tutwiler HK Bhanwala Jimmy Smith Ismail Serageldin Rudy Rabbinge Shenggen Fan Wassfi Hassan Anand Mahindra Ameenah Faqim Sayed Azam Ali Trilochan Mahapatra Kinzang Dorji Kenneth M. Quinn mostafa terrab