Rattan Lal
Born5 September 1944 (76 age)
Karyal, West Punjab, British India (now Pakistan)
CitizenshipUS
Known forsustainable soil management for global food security and mitigation of climate change
AwardsJapan Prize (2019), The World Food Prize (2020)
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Sydney, Australia 1968-69; International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, Nigeria, 1969-87; The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA 1987-2010.

Rattan Lal (born 5 September 1944) is a soil scientist. His work focuses on regenerative agriculture through which soil can help resolve global issues such as climate change, food security and water quality.[1] He is considered a pioneer in soil-centric agricultural management to improve global food security and develop climate-resilient agriculture.[2]

He has received the Japan Prize, and the World Food Prize, among others, for his work.

Early life and education

Rattan Lal was born in 1944 in the Punjab region of British India where his family were subsistence farmers on 9 acres of farmland. As Hindus, they had to leave the region during the Partition of India and lived in refugee camps for two years, eventually resettling in India on less than 2 semi-arid acres.[3]

Lal received his B.S. from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana; M.S. from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi.[4] He was noticed by an Ohio State professor and was given a scholarship from the Punjab government for travel and funding.In 1968, he received his Ph.D. in soils from the Ohio State University.[5]

Career and research

Lal worked as a senior research fellow with the University of Sydney from 1968 to 1969, and then as a soil physicist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria, from 1970 to 1987.[6] While in Nigeria, Lal discovered that organic carbon and other nutrients disappeared after deforestation and his research centered on mulching, cover crops and no-till farming to bring back the soil components. His research brought international scientits to Nigeria to view his experimental plots.[3]

In 1987 he returned to Ohio State University, where as of 2023 he was a distinguished university professor of soil science, director, and founder of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center.[6][3] His first paper was published in the journal Science in 2004 entitled "“The Potential of U.S. Cropland to Sequester Carbon and Mitigate the Greenhouse Effect”" and drew international attention as the first published report on restoring the organic material in soil not only improves soil health but also reduces carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.[3][7]

He was president of the International Union of Soil Science from 2017 to 2018.[8] In 2022, he led a research project on carbon farming to provide in-the-field validation of how soil captures and stores carbon dioxide.[3]

Lal's research in a field that seeks solutions to the challenge of feeding the world’s 8 billion people makes him consistently ranked by Thomson Reuters among the top 1 percent of the most-cited agricultural researchers with over 100,000 citations linked to his over 1,000 journal articles. His work centers on turning degraded soil back into healthy soil by bringing back its carbon and nutrients.[3] His research has impacted agricultural yields, natural resource conservation and climate change mitigation worldwide. The research models Lal uses indicate that restoring soil health can lead to multiple benefits by 2100. Benefits include doubling the global annual grain yield, decreasing the land area by 30% that is used for grain cultivation, and decreasing fertilizer use.[7]

Awards and honors

He has received honorary doctorates from India, Norway, Moldova, Germany and Spain, and, in 2014 and 2015, was included in the Thomson Reuter's list of most influential scientists in the world.[5][9] His work has influenced Roger Revelle and Peter Smith.

Lal was awarded the 2019 Japan Prize 'for the sustainable soil management for global food security and mitigation of climate change.'

On June 11, 2020, Professor Lal was named the recipient of the prestigious World Food Prize. His research diverged from the conventional 1970s soil fertility strategy of heavy reliance on commercial fertilizers. His research led a better understanding of how no-till farming, cover crops, crop residues, mulching, and agroforestry can restore degraded soils, increasing organic matter by sequestering atmospheric carbon in the soil, and help combat rising carbon dioxide levels in the air.[10] He was lauded by the World Food Prize president Barbara Stinson for “improving the food security and livelihoods of more than 2 billion people and saving hundreds of millions of hectares of natural tropical ecosystems.”[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Professor Rattan Lal honoured with Glinka World Soil Prize 2018". Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  2. ↑ House, The White (2022-01-14). "President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions". The White House. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Edwards, Randy. "Ohio State Professor Rattan Lal Aims to Eliminate Hunger While Helping the Environment". Columbus Monthly. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
  4. ↑ "Prof. Rattan Lal". National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (India). Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  5. 1 2 "Rattan Lal: Our Soils Rock Star". cfaes.osu.edu. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
  6. 1 2 "Rattan Lal". Ohio State University.
  7. 1 2 "Carbon markets: Potential income for farmers". Ohio Farm Bureau. 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
  8. ↑ "IUSS - The International Union of Soil Sciences Past officers". IUSS - The International Union of Soil Sciences. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  9. ↑ "THE WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL SCIENTIFIC MINDS 2015" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-06-01. Retrieved 2024-01-11.
  10. ↑ Pitt, David (11 June 2020). "Ohio State University soil professor gets World Food Prize". Tulsa World. Archived from the original on 13 June 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  11. ↑ DeMartini, Alayna (October 5, 2020). "Ohio State soil scientist honored for increasing global food production". Ohio State University.
  12. ↑ Bhavani, Divya Kala (9 February 2021). "Meet Prof Rattan Lal, the godfather of Soil Science, and a Padma Shri 2021 awardee". The Hindu.
  13. ↑ "IUSS - The International Union of Soil Sciences - Von Liebig award 2006". IUSS - The International Union of Soil Sciences. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  14. ↑ "Glinka 2018". FAO, United Nations. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  15. 1 2 Charles, Dan (August 11, 2020). "A Prophet Of Soil Gets His Moment Of Fame". NPR Goats and Soda. Retrieved October 5, 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.