West Lafayette, Indiana
June 11, 2009
 Gebisa
Ejeta, Distinguished Professor of Agronomy at
Purdue University, on
Thursday (June 11) was named the recipient of the
World Food Prize for
research leading to the increased production and availability of
sorghum in his native Africa.
Ejeta, a plant breeder and geneticist, developed sorghum
varieties resistant to drought and Striga, a parasitic weed.
Sorghum is a major food crop for more than 500 million people on
the African continent.
The World Food Prize is considered the Nobel Prize of
agriculture. It is awarded each year by the World Food Prize
Foundation to individuals who have advanced human development by
improving the quality, quantity or availability of food
worldwide. Norman E. Borlaug, winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace
Prize, established the World Food Prize in 1986.
The award announcement was made at the U.S. Department of State
in Washington, D.C., by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
World Food Prize Foundation President Kenneth Quinn. Ejeta will
receive his $250,000 award at an Oct. 15 ceremony in Des Moines,
Iowa.
Ejeta is the second Purdue professor to receive the World Food
Prize in three years. Philip Nelson, the Scholle Chair Professor
in Food Processing and former head of Purdue's Department of
Food Science, won the award in 2007 for developing aseptic bulk
storage and distribution, a technology for transporting
processed fruits and vegetables without product spoilage.
"I'm pleased that the selection committee found my work
significant enough to choose me as the 2009 World Food Prize
winner," Ejeta said. "It is a great honor."
Purdue President France A. Córdova said Ejeta's research is
making a difference in the world and that he is deserving of the
World Food Prize.
"We're very proud of Dr. Ejeta and the work that he has done and
are thrilled that he is receiving the 2009 World Food Prize,"
Córdova said. "This is a sterling example of Purdue's commitment
to helping resolve the global challenges of world hunger."
Jay Akridge, the Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture at Purdue,
agreed.
"Dr. Ejeta's work on the development of new sorghum varieties is
a powerful demonstration of the difference agricultural research
can make in creating a more secure and consistent food supply
for millions of people," he said.
Sorghum is among the world's five principal cereal grains. The
crop is as important to Africa as corn and soybeans are to the
United States.
A native of Ethiopia, Ejeta witnessed the devastating effects of
drought and Striga on sorghum crops in his own country and
several others in eastern and western Africa.
"I focused my research on sorghum because I'm originally from
Africa, and I've known about the importance of the crop to the
people there," Ejeta said. "So I wanted to work on improving
sorghum."
Five years of research in rain-starved northern Sudan produced
his first breakthrough in sorghum research in the early 1980s,
when Ejeta developed the drought-tolerant cultivar Hageen
Dura-1, the first commercial sorghum hybrid in Africa. Hageen
Dura-1 produced yields up to 150 percent higher than traditional
sorghum cultivars. About 1 million acres of the drought-tolerant
sorghum is grown in Sudan annually.
Ejeta then focused on Striga. Commonly known as witchweed, the
insidious weed attacks nearby sorghum through the plant's root
system. The almost microscopic Striga seeds germinate and then
send out rootlets, which find sorghum roots and work their way
into the host plant. Once inside, the parasitic weed removes
valuable nutrients.
Striga is especially troublesome because the weed's seeds can
remain viable for up to 20 years. Striga-related losses of 40
percent are possible in non-resistant sorghum crops.
Working with late Purdue colleague Larry Butler, Ejeta
identified the exudate - chemical signal - from sorghum that is
picked up by Striga rootlets. From there, he was able to develop
a biological mechanism for interrupting the exudation process.
"The parasitic weed work took nearly 15 years to come to
fruition," Ejeta said. "The novel approach that we developed was
a totally new paradigm on how to dissect this complex trait into
simpler components. After that, we didn't need to go to Africa
to do Striga research. We were able to do this work in a
laboratory at Purdue University."
In 1994 eight tons of Ejeta's drought-tolerant and
Striga-resistant sorghum seeds produced at a Purdue agricultural
research farm were distributed to Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya,
Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan,
Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Farmers reported yields of as much as
four times larger than traditional sorghum crops.
Ejeta is not finished with sorghum genetics or international
development work.
"The need out there is great, so there is more to do," he said.
"We need to extend the results of our work to more programs and
more nations. We need to build stronger human and institutional
capacity in African nations to help people feed themselves. We
need to encourage the development of similar advances in maize,
millets and other crops of Africa."
Ejeta received his master's and doctoral degrees in plant
breeding and genetics from Purdue in 1976 and 1978,
respectively. He joined the Purdue faculty in 1984.
More information about the World Food Prize Foundation and Prize
is available at
http://www.worldfoodprize.org |
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