NPR: Soil Prof Hits Pay Dirt: $250K Prize For Helping Farmers, Fighting Climate Change
“Rattan Lal just won a quarter of a million dollars for his scientific research on dirt. Or as he prefers to call it, ‘soil.’ And in fact, soil and money have something in common, says Lal, the newly named 2020 World Food Prize Laureate. Think of the ground as similar [to] a bank account. If you want to improve your bank account balance, you have to deposit more money than you withdraw. The same goes for soil. You have to make deposits to keep it healthy. … Lal believes sustainable agriculture practices are the ‘win-win-win option’ as the world grapples with the urgent challenges of climate change and food scarcity. ‘My philosophy has always been that the health of soil, plants, animal, people, and the environment is one indivisible, Lal says” (Craig, 6/22).