Hans Rudolf Herren | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Herren, c. 2009 | |
| Born | Hans Rudolf Herren November 30, 1947 |
| Nationality |
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| Alma mater | ETH Zürich (MS) ETH Zürich (PhD) University of California, Berkeley (post PhD) |
| Spouse | Barbara Gemill |
| Children | 3 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biology |
Hans Rudolf Herren (born November 30, 1947)[1] is a Swiss American entomologist, farmer and development specialist.[2] He was the first Swiss to receive the 1995 World Food Prize and the 2013 Right Livelihood Award for leading a major biological pest management campaign in Africa, successfully fighting the cassava mealybug and averting a major food crisis that could have claimed an estimated 20 million lives.[3][4]
Herren is the president and CEO of the Washington-based Millennium Institute[5] and co-founder and president of the Swiss foundation Biovision.[6] He co-chaired the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) published 2008, and was Director General of International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) in Nairobi, Kenya from 1994 to 2005. He was involved in the preparations of the United Nations' Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development with Biovision Foundation and Millennium Institute.
Herren was born November 30, 1947, in Mühleberg, Switzerland to Rudolf and Emma Herren (née Mader; 1922-2021).[7] After receiving his M.Sc. in agronomy from the ETH Zurich and his doctorate in Biological Control from the same university in 1977, Herren did his post-doctoral studies in Biological Control of insect pests at the University of California in Berkeley.
In 1979, at only 32 years old, Herren then went to work for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, Nigeria. There he built the Biological Control Programme and designed and implemented the largest biological pest-management known to date, fighting the Cassava mealybug (Phenacoccus manihoti) with its natural enemy, a parasitic wasp (Anagyrus lopezi), which he found in South America. He saved an estimated 20 million lives by averting a major food crisis. For this achievement he received numerous awards including the 1995 World Food Prize[3] and the 2003 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement.[1]
Herren then developed a number of other biological control programmes against field and tree crops as well as aquatic weeds across sub-Saharan Africa.[8] Subsequently, Herren became Director of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe). From 1994 to 2005, he was also the Editor-in Chief of the Journal Insect Science and Its Application. With some of his prize money he went on to found Biovision Foundation in 1998 in Zurich. The organisation works with pilot projects, communication projects and political projects to foster ecological development in the global North and South and has grown to an annual budget of over $8 Mio. Since 2005 he heads the Washington-based Millennium Institute, dedicated to system dynamics modeling for scenario-based sustainable development policy support.[9] Furthermore, Herren was co-author and co-chairman of the World Agriculture Report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) in 2008, which was initiated by six UN organisations and the World Bank.
Further Memberships:
Based on his deep and long experience in biological pest control, sustainable agriculture and rural development issues Herren is an outspoken proponent of agro-ecology, organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. He criticises that GMOs currently, and most probably also in the future, offer no significant economic or social advantages to poor small-scale farmers, that they reduce the resilience of agricultural systems through reducing the diversity of crops and the genetical diversity within varieties at a time when more diversity is needed from crop/animal to system levels. According to Herren: "Today's GMOs don't produce more food, they help cut production costs - in the first few years until insects and weeds catch up again - as we have seen earlier with the use of insecticides. That's why we introduced Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which was meant to treat the causes of pest outbreaks. The GMO crop cultivars that are used today are basically a step back, to the pre-IPM period. Many pest problems can actually be solved with classical breeding and marker assisted breeding methods, that do not force farmers into costly licensing agreements with seed companies or lock them into the use of specific herbicides."[14]
Dr Herren believes the way forward was well described in the IAASTD Report. It called for a shift in paradigm, the transition of the industrial and external energy dependent agriculture into a multifunctional agriculture that promotes a system-approach to production and problem solving. The report suggests that business as usual is not an option and recommends a number of action in research and implementation that address the food and nutrition security now and for the decades ahead. Dr. Herren has been at the forefront of the conversation and action for the implementation of the IAASTD report - which was sponsored by 6 UN agencies and the World Bank, involving over 400 scientists, NGOs and the private sector and had been endorsed at the final plenary by 59 countries from around the world.[15]
Herren is married to Barbara Gemill. They have three children and reside in California.
Herren has published extensively (over 70 articles).[1] His own publications include the following:
Herren was coordinating author of the Agriculture Chapter of UNEP's "Green Economy Report" (2011).[20]
