Plant Breeding and Global Food Security

The Plant Science Department is pleased and privileged to announce that Dr. Gurdev S. Khush has agreed to visit our faculty to present a seminar. Dr. Khush is considered one of the heroes of the Green Revolution. At the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) he lead the rice breeding group in the development of hundreds of more productive rice strains that now produce 60% of the world’s rice. The adoption of these modern varieties helped to double the world’s rice supply and enabled self-sufficiency in most of the major rice-producing countries. The most famous of these include IR36 (released 1976), the most widely planted variety of rice (or of any other food crop), with over 11 million ha in Asia in the 1980s. Another, IR72 (released 1990) is the world’s highest-yielding rice variety. The new rice varieties, developed under his guidance, have helped to feed countries facing unprecedented population growth. For these contributions, Dr. Khush has received numerous awards, including the Japan Prize from the Japan Center for Science & Technology (1987), the World Food Prize, shared with Dr. Henry Beachell (1996), the Rank Prize (1998), the Wolf Prize for Agriculture (2000) and the Golden Sickle Award (2007). He is a graduate of Punjab Agricultural University and the University of California (Davis) and has since been awarded many honorary degrees, including an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University in England. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society of London, and does extensive international consulting to governments, including India, China, and Russia. Dr. Khush has authored 3 books, more than 80 book chapters, and over 160 scientific papers. Dr. Khush is currently an adjunct professor at UC Davis but can be described as a scientist of the world. We are truly fortunate that he has agreed to come to share his knowledge with us! This seminar is sponsored by the Plant Science Dept. & SEVE