In recognition of his lifetime achievements, Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram has been named the 2014 winner of the World Food Prize. Those achievements include breeding four hundred and eighty varieties of wheat, many of which are resistant to rust disease and adaptable to a broad range of climates.

Building on the successes of the Green Revolution, Rajaram, a native of India and citizen of Mexico, where he worked with Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), helped produce varieties of wheat that led to prodigious increases in wheat production — more than two hundred million tons during the twenty-five-year period known as the "golden years of wheat." Succeeding Borlaug as head of CIMMYT's wheat breeding program, Rajaram crossed winter and spring varieties, which led to the development of plants that have higher yields under a broad range of environmental conditions.

Established by Borlaug in 1987, the World Food Prize is considered the foremost international award recognizing individuals whose achievements have advanced human development by increasing the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world.

"One hundred years ago, when Norm was born, the world population was 1.8 billion; today it is more than seven billion and by 2050 it's expected to exceed nine billion," said World Food Prize president Kenneth M. Quinn. "The greatest challenge in human history is whether we will be able to sustainably feed everyone on our planet."