By LINDA McGURK
Indiana Correspondent

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Growing up in a one-room thatched hut in drought-stricken Ethiopia, Gebisa Ejeta learned firsthand the hardships of farmers in Africa.

Now the Distinguished Professor of Agronomy at Purdue University has received the World Food Prize for developing sorghum varieties that have helped alleviate hunger on his native continent.

“I’m pleased that the selection committee found my work significant enough to choose me as the 2009 World Food Prize winner,” Ejeta said about the $250,000 prize. “It is a great honor.”
The World Food Prize is considered the Nobel Prize of agriculture and has been awarded since 1986. It highlights individuals who have increased the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. Ejeta, a plant breeder and geneticist, received the prize for his groundbreaking work on sorghum varieties that are resistant to drought and the parasitic weed striga.

“Sorghum is a very important crop in many African countries,” Ejeta said. “The two biggest problems with the sorghum crop are drought and parasitic weeds. Finding a solution to those issues has been a huge boon to African agriculture. Yields have increased significantly, and the sorghum acreage has increased as well.”

Ejeta’s first major breakthrough came in the early 1980s, when he developed the first commercial sorghum hybrid in Africa, a drought-tolerant cultivar that reportedly increased yields by 150 percent compared with traditional varieties. In the 1990s, he developed hybrids that are resistant to striga, a parasitic weed that penetrates the roots of the sorghum plant and removes all the valuable nutrients, potentially devastating the crop in nonresistant varieties.
Striga was more or less eradicated in the United States in the early 1900s, but still plagues about 40 percent of the arable savannah in Africa. Striga also affects corn, rice, millet and sugarcane.

“Many of these biological phenomena are shared among crops, especially the cereals,” Ejeta said, “so the things we learn about one crop help us understand, and possibly apply the research to, some other crops as well. If – God forbid – striga becomes a problem in the U.S., we’ll benefit from this knowledge.”

Ejeta has developed 14 cultivars that are drought-tolerant, striga-resistant or a combination of the two. In 1994, eight tons of the hybrids that he produced at the Purdue research farm were distributed to 12 African countries. Using some of the drought-tolerant germplasm from the African hybrids, he’s also released more than 70 elite sorghum inbred lines for commercial use by the U.S. sorghum hybrid industry.

“Gebisa’s project is not isolated to Africa,” said Jeff Dahlberg, research director with the National Sorghum Producers. “One of the nice things with the sorghum group (of researchers) is that they do a lot of international work and they see a lot of different sorghum varieties that we don’t see here in the U.S. We’ve found that some of them are actually valuable enough to bring into the U.S.”

He said Ejeta receiving the World Food Prize will help put the spotlight on sorghum and change the perception of it as a “poor man’s crop” because of its ability to grow on marginal land.
“We’re greatly pleased that a sorghum researcher received the prize,” Dahlberg said. “It is a neglected crop worldwide and we’re hoping this will elevate its image around the world. It’s a very positive thing for sorghum.”

Ejeta worked closely with a multitude of different governmental and nongovernmental organizations to implement his research, and said the biggest challenge was getting around all the regulatory hurdles when introducing the new technology to the African nations. His experience has made him a valuable advisor to various organizations that fund hunger eradication programs in Africa, including the Gates Foundation.

“I’m not likely to be involved in seed distribution, but I’ll continue to work with the different funding organizations,” Ejeta said about his future role. “More opportunities like that are likely to come my way, especially with this recognition. I will continue to strengthen agricultural research in these countries and hope to engage myself in the big-picture issues.”

Ejeta also stressed that his achievement was the result of many individuals and organizations working together. “While I’ve been singled out and recognized, I’d like to recognize the many individuals that have been working with me to make this possible,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) congratulated Ejeta. “The Foreign Relations Committee benefited from his testimony earlier this year, and I am excited that he has been recognized for his tremendous role in efforts to end global hunger and poverty,” he said in a statement.

Earlier this year, Lugar introduced the Global Food Security Act to help avert future food crises through assisting able developing nations in increase their own production capacity. Ejeta testified before the Senate committee in March about the importance of investments in global agriculture production and rural development, to meet the needs of a rapidly growing world population.