A Nigerian, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the Vice President (Policy and Partnerships) for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), has been awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by one of the foremost liberal arts universities in the USA, Franklin & Marshall College, recently.

He works for Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), established by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with the goal of bringing a green revolution to Africa and lifting millions of poor farmers out of poverty and food insecurity. Former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, is the Chairman of AGRA.

Honored along with Dr. Adesina in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA, are other global leaders, including Senator Richard Lugar, the US Senate’s most senior Republican and Dr. Eugene Braunwald, arguably the world’s leading cardiologist of the last half century.

Dr. Adesina is a distinguished scholar of African agriculture, economics and development, and a tireless champion of green revolution for Africa.

An agricultural economist, with over 20 years of professional experience in African agriculture, he graduated with First Class Honors from University of Ife, Nigeria in 1981, and received a doctorate in agricultural economics from Purdue University, USA in 1988, where he won the Outstanding Ph.D Thesis Award.

Before joining AGRA in 2008, Adesina was associate director for food security at the Rockefeller Foundation, New York, for more than a decade.

He has held senior scientific positions within the international agricultural research centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, including the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, West Africa Rice Development Association and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics.

He has served as President of African Association of Agricultural Economists and Executive Board member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists.

He has published over 70 articles in international journals, conference proceedings and books on issues of agricultural development in Africa and serves as reviewer for several international journals.

He is currently working on innovative ways to leverage billions of dollars in affordable credit for African small-scale farmers through public and private partnerships.

In June last year, Dr Adesina was appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations as one of 17 world leaders who will help to galvanize international support for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The eight goals aim to improve dramatically the lives of the world’s poorest people by 2015.

Dr. Adesina says “Feeding Africa and unlocking the potential of our agriculture to generate wealth to lift millions out of poverty is my life mission. Africa must feed itself and create jobs through a more productive, efficient and competitive agriculture”.

He noted that “this award by Franklin and Marshall College, one of America’s foremost liberal arts colleges, is truly special. I am humbled and honored to be considered in such company”