WASHINGTON D.C. — Julie Borlaug, granddaughter of the late Dr. Norman Borlaug and external relations director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M University, called this year’s World Food Prize laureate “one of the greatest assets in fighting hunger and poverty today.”
Borlaug’s remarks come after the June 18 announcement of this year’s sole World Food Prize laureate, Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram.
“I’d like to congratulate Dr. Rajaram on behalf of the Borlaug Institute at Texas A&M University for his hard work in carrying on my grandfather’s legacy while building his own,” Borlaug said. “Sanjaya Rajaram was one of my grandfather’s most esteemed colleagues. I know he would have been proud to see the World Food Prize awarded to someone he held in such high regard and who has contributed so much to the fight against world hunger and poverty.”
Rajaram worked with Dr. Borlaug in Mexico and has continued his own life’s work by developing 480 wheat varieties and contributing to a world wheat production increase of roughly 200 million tons across 51 countries, said U.S. Ambassador Kenneth M. Quinn during the announcement ceremony.
This is the first year since the award’s creation by Dr. Borlaug in 1986 that the prize has been presented to someone working in wheat, the crop for which he earned global renown as “father of the Green Revolution.”
“This is an especially momentous award in the light of my grandfather’s centennial year,” Borlaug said, recognizing 2014 as the year that would have marked her grandfather’s 100th birthday.
For more information on the Borlaug Institute, go to: http://borlaug.tamu.edu.
For more information on the World Food Prize, go to: http://www.worldfoodprize.org.
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