March 13, 2000

Pinstrup-Andersen Receives
Honorary Doctorate of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences from Wageningen University in the Netherlands

The degree was awarded to Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen for the critical role he has played in the field of international food policy, said Dr. Arie Oskam, professor of agricultural economics at Wageningen. It was presented during the university's 82nd anniversary celebration. Founded in 1918, Wageningen University is a leading educational institution in Europe, with a strong international reputation in natural and social sciences.

In his address at the award ceremony, Professor Oskam emphasized Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen's strong sense of mission to help the poor in developing countries. In receiving the degree, Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen said, "I am particularly honored because I consider Wageningen University to be such an outstanding and world-renowned agricultural university."

Before the ceremony, Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen appeared with two other well-known scientists at a university seminar on food, nutrition, and resources, where he spoke on the benefits that modern technology can bring to food security in the developing world. Enlightened and adaptive research on agricultural biotechnology can help, said Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen, "provided it focuses on the needs of the poor farmers and consumers in those countries, identified in consultation with poor people themselves."

A native of Denmark, Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen is a former director of the Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program and professor of food economics at Cornell University. Before his teaching and research positions at Cornell, he served as an agricultural economist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia and as director of the Agro-Economic Division at the International Fertilizer Development Center in the United States. Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen holds a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Denmark and master's and doctoral degrees in agricultural economics from Oklahoma State University. Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen also holds honorary doctorates from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, India's Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, and the University of Aberdeen. He joined IFPRI as its director general in 1992 and has published widely on important global food and agricultural policy issues.

For more information contact: Don Lippincott (Tel: 202-862-5670; Email: d.lippincott@cgiar.org), or David Gately (Tel: 202-862-5679; Email: d.gately@cgiar.org).

IFPRI is a Washington, D.C.-based, internationally funded organization established in 1975 to identify and analyze policies for meeting the food needs of the developing world. IFPRI conducts research on ways to achieve sustainable food production and optimize land use, improve food consumption and income levels of the poor, enhance the efficiency of markets and links between agriculture and other sectors of the economy, and improve trade and macroeconomic conditions.

IFPRI's 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment was launched in 1993 to develop and promote a vision and an action plan for eradicating hunger and malnutrition while protecting the environment. This initiative brings together researchers, policymakers, and representatives of international organizations and media to examine the challenges to meeting the world's food needs sustainably and to propose solutions.