Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Cornell University's H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, has been named chairman of the Science Council for CGIAR, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the world's largest publicly funded agricultural research organization.

CGIAR's membership includes governments, international and regional organizations and private foundations investing in agricultural science to benefit poor farmers. The consortium is co-sponsored by the World Bank and three United Nations groups the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the United Nations Development Program. CGIAR supports 15 international agricultural research centers seeking to reduce hunger and poverty, improve human nutrition and health, and protect the environment.

The Science Council advises CGIAR on research priorities, evaluates the quality of the research being conducted by the centers, measures the impact of the centers' work and mobilizes projects. The council's secretariat is based at the FAO in Rome.

Pinstrup-Andersen, the 2001 World Food Prize laureate, says of his appointment, which was officially announced today (March 31): "The success of CGIAR in alleviating poverty, hunger and malnutrition depends on the quality and relevance of the research in each center. While each of the 15 research centers will establish its own priorities, it is of critical importance that they reflect the most critical needs for international agricultural research. To assure that the sum of the work by the 15 centers is greater than the individual parts, there is a need for an effective Science Council. Otherwise CGIAR will miss opportunities for maximizing the impact of each dollar spent."

Susan A. Henry, the Ronald A. Lynch Dean of Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, says that the appointment "is a great honor" for Cornell as well as Pinstrup-Andersen. "His research has enabled many developing countries to transform their food policies and dramatically increase the food available to the poor. As chairman of the Science Council, he will be able to develop sustainable change on a new level," she observes.

Ian Johnson, vice president (sustainable development) of the World Bank and chairman of CGIAR, says he is confident that under the Science Council's advice, "CGIAR will continue to make a tremendous impact on the lives of millions of poor people around the world."

Pinstrup-Andersen was raised on a farm in Denmark and left school after the seventh grade to become a farm worker. He was drafted into the Danish Defense Forces and later attended the Danish Agricultural University, where he received a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Oklahoma State University. He also is professor of development economics at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Denmark.

He began his professional career in Colombia with the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, a CGIAR-supported center based in Cali. Since then he has served a director-general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, another CGIAR center. In 1993 he launched the 2020 Vision Initiative, a comprehensive research and dissemination program undertaken on behalf of global food security.

Pinstrup-Andersen will continue in his faculty position at Cornell while serving on the CGIAR Science Council.