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COLLEGE STATION -- The 1997 World Food Prize has been awarded jointly to Dr. Perry Adkisson of College Station and Dr. Ray F. Smith of Lafayette, Calif., whose leadership in developing and implementing new approaches to agricultural pest control has resulted in a 50- percent reduction of insecticide use on U.S. crops while maintaining or increasing yields. The award was announced today in Washington, D.C.
The World Food Prize is the leading international award in recognition of individuals whose work has improved the quantity, quality and availability of the world's food supply. Adkisson and Smith will share the $250,000 award.
The two scientists have worked nationally and internationally for more than 30 years to promote a more sustainable way to control agricultural pests without complete dependence on chemical pesticides. Their approach, known as integrated pest management or IPM, combines a variety of tactics such as cultural control, host plant resistance, crop monitoring, biological control and chemical control to keep pests below crop damaging levels.
"The reason we have farmers accept it so well is that it's more profitable for them," Adkisson said. "They can usually maintain yields, sometimes increase them, but IPM greatly increases profit margins and has less impact on the environment. It just works out better."
"Dr. Adkisson and his colleague Dr. Ray Smith are the true visionaries of integrated pest mangement," said Dr. Ray Frisbie, head of the entomology department at Texas A&M University. "In the 1960's, when agriculture was heavily reliant on synthetic pesticides to control pests, these two gentlemen looked into the future and saw that this was not a sustainable way of doing business."
Assisted by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Adkisson and Smith made the United States a focal point for the development of IPM programs for fruit, citrus, vegetables, alfalfa, soybeans, grain sorghum, cotton, peanuts and rice. As a result, recent government statistics show that insecticide use on U.S. crops has dropped by half.
Additionally, IPM principles are applied on food crops around the world.
"The largest single project in IPM is on rice in southeast Asia where it's been used to greatly reduce the use of pesticides and increase yields," Adkisson said. "And in the process, it has been much better for human health in those countries because people were getting poisoned by pesticide residues and mosquitos that carry malaria were becoming resistant to pesticides. It's been a real pleasure to all of us involved in developing IPM to see it now accepted in developing countries as the way to control pests."
IPM has an estimated $340 million annual impact on the Texas economy and is a key to the state's annual agricultural production which totaled almost $14 billion in 1996, according to the Texas Agricultural Extension Service. Statewide, pesticide use on most crops has been reduced by one-third.
Because of IPM practices, Texas cotton farmers now use about one- fourth of the insecticides they used in the 1960s. In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, insecticide use has dropped by 60 percent in carrots and 40 percent in cabbage.
Adkisson, 68, attended the University of Arkansas as an undergraduate and graduate student. He received his doctorate from Kansas State University in 1956. Since 1958, Dr. Adkisson has worked as a professor of entomology, researcher and administrator at Texas A&M University. From 1967 until 1978, he was head of the university's entomology department. From 1986 until 1990, he was chancellor of the Texas A&M University System.
"Dr. Adkisson is a visionary leader who was responsible for moving the A&M System a giant step forward during a significant time in its history when the system was experiencing dramatic growth," said A&M System Chancellor Barry B. Thompson.
"His involvement in agricultural research and scholarship in the area of integrated pest management is absolutely unmatched," Thompson said.
Adkisson has written scores of books and scholarly articles and remains active in numerous U.S. and international agricultural organizations dedicated to crop protection and insect control. He became chancellor emeritus and distinguished professor emeritus at Texas A&M in 1995.
Smith, 78, attended the University of California, Berkeley, as an undergraduate and received his doctorate there in 1946. He remained at Berkeley as a teacher and researcher. In 1960, he became a full professor and chairman of the university's entomology department. He is the author of numerous books and scientific articles, which provided much of the theoretical foundation for the integrated control of agricultural pests.
In the late 1960s, Smith and Adkisson began a series of collaborative efforts aimed at expanded research in the field of insect control as well as practical implementation of integrated pest management programs.
Working through their respective universities, Cooperative Extension Services, scientific organizations, governmental agencies and international bodies, the two professors were broadly instrumental in popularizing pest control programs that did not rely exclusively on the unilateral application of chemicals.
Since its establishment in 1987, the World Food Prize has been awarded to 14 individuals. Two previous winners have been associated with Texas A&M University. Last year, one of the co-recipients was Dr. Henry (Hank) Beachell of Pearland, who worked jointly for the U.S. Department of Agricultural and Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. Dr. Edward F. Knipling was a co-recipient in 1992. Knipling received his bachelor's and master's degree in entomology from Texas A&M and as a U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist, helped develop the sterile-insect release method that eradicated the screwworm fly from the United States, Mexico and Africa.
Photos of Adkisson can be located at <http://agnews.tamu.edu/photos/adkisson/>.
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