Please give a warm welcome to our new summer intern, Genevieve Alander. This is her first piece for the ONE Blog.
Today, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the recipient for the 2012 World Food Prize Laureate Award, which is presented annually to an individual who has made significant progress in improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. We are excited to share with you that Dr. Daniel Hillel, 81, was recognized today as the 2012 World Food Prize Laureate for his innovative irrigation system designed specifically for reaching dry crops in the Middle East, and decades of ground-breaking work in the field.
Dr. Hillel grew up in Israel, and it was there where he saw a need in the farming industry. He looked for ways to improve each step of the farming process, starting with the seed and then moving to water. Understanding the importance of water for crops to thrive and noticing a lack of it, Dr. Hillel developed a micro-irrigation system that applies water in small, continuous amounts. Also known as drip irrigation, this method conserves water while still allowing plants to flourish. The system combats both the unpredictability of water as well as the scarcity of it, allowing for well-hydrated crops. So far, this system has made an impact on thousands of farmers throughout 30 countries.
Dr. Hillel’s groundbreaking development of the micro-irrigation system has strengthened food security across the globe and will continue to do so, especially as rainfall becomes less reliable due to climate change. Both water and food have been named as critical issues to be addressed at next week’s Rio+20 Earth Summit, and no doubt Dr. Hillel’s innovation was chosen in part because it addresses both of these.
Highest regards to Dr. Hillel for making our world one step closer to reversing the global trend of hunger and poverty while also conserving one of the earth’s scarcest and most precious elements: water.
For more information about the World Food Prize check out: http://www.worldfoodprize.org/