The World Food Prize Foundation (WFPF) has awarded its Dr Norman E Borlaug Medallion, commonly known as the Nobel Prize for food and agriculture, to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (IMWIC).

The award was presented during a ceremony on Thursday evening at the Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security in Obregón.

Dr Norman Borlaug created the World Food Prize and carefully structured it as an award to recognise individual achievements in increasing the quality, quantity and availability of food around the world.

“As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of great agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, it is most fitting that WFPF Dr Norman Borlaug Medallion be presented to IMWIC, the research institution that grew from Norm’s own personal work in Mexico 60 years ago and was the scientific impetus from which the Green Revolution emanated,” said Kenneth M Quinn, president of the WFPF. “I know this great organisation and its accomplishments will continue to serve as an inspiration to the next generation of agriculturalists and hunger fighters in the decades ahead.”

“Dr Borlaug’s legacy and inspiration is needed now more than ever as we look ahead at the challenge of feeding over 9 billion people on our planet by the year 2050. IMWIC is truly a leader in the research necessary to meet that challenge,” Quinn said.