It was in a brightly-lit room in Mexico City, Mexico, that on June 18, 2014 it was announced that India-born Dr Sanjaya Rajaram had been named the winner of the World Food Prize.
Dr Rajaram won this award for successfully crossbreeding (杂交) the winter and spring wheat (小麦) varieties, which have been two distinct and isolated gene pools (分离的基因库) since the beginning of farming. And because of this breakthrough, the scientist has been able to breed over 480 wheat varieties.
Born in Varanasi in 1943, Dr Rajaram lived with his family off a plot of land growing wheat, rice and maize. "After my education here in India, I went off to Australia for my PhD and soon I joined CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre) in Mexico, where my career as a plant breeder started, " said Dr Rajaram.
"Every country is unique — there are climate systems, culture, the financial situation and each of the nations I visited needed a different set of solutions, " said Dr Rajaram. His solutions became part of what is widely described as the world's first "wheat network", a global exchange of "genetic information and innovations among researchers". His varieties of wheat were strong in nutrition, delayed (延迟) the attack of some plant diseases and were able to survive the severest of conditions.
After nearly half a century in the field, Dr Rajaram said his work was still not finished. "In science, you never stop learning. I have been doing this all my life and I've never really had time for anything else. As far as hobbies go, well, there's a bit of music I like to listen to and that's pretty much it. I have been on a long journey of pushing the boundaries (边界) of what's possible and today, there's still work left. Learning must never stop and the world must not go hungry. "
