Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is a climate-smart root crop, grown by more than 7 million farm households in South East Asia. With decades of hard work by two renowned scientists, Dr. Chareinsuk Rojanaridpiched of Thailand and Dr. Reinhardt Howeler of USA, cassava has seen a significant changeover, allowingmillions of farmers in Asia to step out of poverty.
Dr. Chareinsuk Rojanaridpiched, is well known as the "inventor" of the cassava variety called KU50, known for its high yield and starch content and its wide adaptability, which has nearly doubled the cassava yields, resulting in about US$17 billion in increased income for millions of smallholder farmers in Asia over the past 25 years. Dr. Reinhardt Howeler is also world famous for his long-term research to improve the soil fertility management and erosion control practices for cassava and farmer's participatory projects in SE Asia. Both these modest scientists dedicated their career to empowering the astronomical growth of the cassava processing industry in that part of the world during the last two decades. Besides, both of them trained scores of students and farmers from many countries in SE Asia for more than two decades to transmit their knowledge to young generations of scientists and to farmers to adopt KU50.
Therefore, on behalf of GCP21, we are seeking the support of all cassava community by gathering the signature of this petition to increase their chances to be awarded the World Food Prize, which is known as the "Nobel prize for Food and Agriculture." As such their efforts to reduce poverty and hunger and increase the cassava production for the benefit of millions of people of householders in the region, and also honor the philosophy and work of Dr. Norman Borlaug.
