American climatologist and agronomist Cynthia Rosenzweig is set to receive the World Food Prize at a ceremony Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa, for her work in modeling how climate change is affecting world food production.
The World Food Prize Foundation announced Rosenzweig as this year’s laureate in May. The award comes with a $250,000 prize.
The foundation cited her founding of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project, saying it has “directly helped decision-makers in more than 90 countries enhance their resilience to climate change.”
Thursday’s award ceremony is part of several days of events that include panels and speeches under the theme “Feeding a Fragile World.”
Among the panelists is Kees Huizinga, a Ukrainian farmer the foundation says will outline the food production challenges his country faces as it deals with the Russian invasion, the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of climate change.
The foundation will also honor Mahalingam Govindaraj as this year’s winner of the Norman E. Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application. Announced in August, the award and its $10,000 is given to someone under the age of 40 for science-based work in international agriculture.
The foundation highlighted Govindaraj’s work in directing “the development and dissemination of high-yielding, high-iron and high-zinc pearl millet varieties that have contributed to better nutrition for thousands of farmers and their communities.”
