The World Food Prize organisation has announced that the 2020 award will be handed to Dr Rattan Lal for his contributions to the science of soil. Dr Lal will be the 50th recipient of this honour and will be given the award in October this year.
According to the official website of the World Food Prize, Dr Lal was chosen as the recipient for the award this year because he has ben working in the field for the past 50+ years and during that time, he has “promoted innovative soil-saving techniques benefiting the livelihoods of more than 500 million smallholder farmers,” has helped more than two billion people be food secure and “saved hundreds of millions of hectares of natural tropical ecosystems.”
Dr Lal was quoted as saying by the website, “I believe soil is a living thing. That’s what soil health means, soil is life. Every living thing has rights. Therefore, soil also has rights,” Lal said. “As long as you are consuming the natural resources – food, water, elements – coming from the soil, you owe it to soil to put something back, to give something back, whatever you can.”
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