A Brazilian scientist who pushed back against chemical fertilizers and researched biologically based approaches to more robust food production has been honored with this year’s World Food Prize, the organization announced on Tuesday.
Microbiologist Mariangela Hungria’s research helped her country become an agricultural powerhouse, an accomplishment that has won her US$500,000 from the Iowa-based World Food Prize Foundation.
Hungria has been researching biological seed and soil treatments for 40 years and has worked with Brazilian farmers to implement her findings.
Photo: AP
“I still cannot believe it. Everybody said, my whole life: ‘It’s improbable, you are going the wrong way, just go to things like chemicals’ and so on. And then, I received the most important prize in the world of agriculture,” Hungria said in an interview. “Sometimes I still think I’ll wake up and see that it’s not true.”
Norman Borlaug, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work to dramatically increase crop yields and reduce the threat of starvation in many countries, founded the World Food Prize. Since the first prize was handed out in 1987, 55 people have been honored.
Hungria said she grew up wanting to alleviate hunger. Early in her career, she decided to focus on a process called biological nitrogen fixation, in which soil bacteria could be used to promote plant growth.
At that time, farmers in Brazil and around the world were reluctant to reduce their use of nitrogen fertilizers, which dramatically increase crop production, but pollute waterways.
Hungria studied how bacteria can interact with plant roots to naturally produce nitrogen. She demonstrated her work on test plots and began working directly with farmers to convince them that they would not have to sacrifice high crop yields if they switched to a biological process.
The work is credited for increasing yields of several crops, including wheat, corn and beans, but it has been especially affective on soybeans. Brazil has since become the world’s largest soybean producer, surpassing the US and Argentina.
Although Hungria’s research could be applied on farms in other countries, soybean production in the US is different than it is in Brazil; American farmers typically rotate crops on their land between growing corn and soybeans. Enough nitrate fertilizer applied to corn still remains in the soil when soybeans are planted that little or no fertilizer needs to be applied, Hungria said.
Brazilian agricultural companies have faced fierce criticism for clearing forested land to create farmland, largely to grow soybeans.
Much of that criticism is justified, Hungria said, but she added that her biological approach builds up the soil and makes further encroachment into forested areas less necessary.
“If you manage the crop well, the crop will enrich the soil with nitrogen. Soil health improves if you do the right things,” she said.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS