Two American pest control researchers received this year's World Food Prize Tuesday for their work on reducing insecticide use while maintaining or increasing yields.
Ray F. Smith, 78, and Perry L. Adkisson, 68, will share the $250,000 cash award that accompanies the prize."Working separately and together over the past 30 years, Smith and Adkisson helped bring about a fundamental shift in agricultural production marked by a dramatic reduction in the use of chemical pesticides," said a statement on the award.
It said their work on new approaches to agricultural pest control had sparked a global ecological revolution, reducing insecticide use on U.S. crops alone by 50 percent.