This is the VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT.
Pedro Sanchez (PAY-dro SAHN-chez)of the United States has won the World Food Prize for this year. Theprize will be presented in October at Iowa State University. MisterSanchez will receive the award and two-hundred-fifty-thousanddollars.
The World Food Prize honors people who have improved the qualityof world food supplies. Mister Sanchez is chairman of the UnitedNations Task Force on World Hunger. The award recognizes his yearsof work to improve soil productivity in South America, SoutheastAsia and Africa. The World Food Prize Foundation says his methodshave helped feed people in the developing world while protecting theenvironment.
Pedro Sanchez was born in Havana, Cuba, in nineteen-forty. Hisfather was an agricultural expert. As a boy, Pedro observed hisfather’s efforts to help farmers use fertilizers more effectively.This influenced his decision to study agricultural science inHavana.
In nineteen-fifty-eight, Mister Sanchez came to the United Statesand continued his studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.In the nineteen-seventies, he led North Carolina State University’sRice Research Program in Peru. The World Food Prize Foundation saysMister Sanchez helped Peru increase its rice production. In justthree years, Peru was producing enough rice to feed itspopulation.Mister Sanchez found that many people in Peru’s AmazonRiver area had believed their soil was useless for agriculture.
Mister Sanchez then led an effort to develop a soil managementprogram in a huge area of unproductive land in Brazil. His team andBrazil’s Agricultural Research Program developed methods to make thearea productive. As a result of this work, thirty-million hectareswere made productive. Average crop production increased by sixtypercent.
In nineteen-ninety-one, Mister Sanchez became head of theInternational Center for Research in Agroforestry in Nairobi, Kenya.There, he developed a method to improve soil with nutrients fromlocal rock phosphate and by planting trees on farmland.
The World Food Prize Foundation says his methods have providednatural, low-cost ways for African farmers to fertilize their soils.These methods have increased food production for many Africanfarmers by as much as four-hundred percent.
This VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT was written by GeorgeGrow.