Von Liebig award 2006

Rattan Lal

Rattan Lal, Ph.D.,  professor of soil physics in the School of Environment and Natural Resources, and Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, FAES/OARDC at The Ohio State University (OSU), Lal served as a soil physicist from 1970 to 1987 at the IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria, conducting long-term experiments on land use, watershed management, methods of deforestation, erosion control, no-till farming, and agroforestry.

Since joining OSU in 1987, he has worked on soils and climate change, soil degradation and global food security.

He is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), Third World Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS), and Indian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

He received the International Soil Science Award, the Soil Science Applied Research Award, and the Soil Science Research Award of the SSSA, the International Agronomy Award and Environment Quality Research Award and Carl Sprengel Agronomic Research Award of the ASA, the Hugh Hammond Bennett Award of the SWCS, and 2005 Borlaug Award. He was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Punjab Agricultural University, India and of the Norwegian University of life Sciences, Aas, Norway. 

He is past president of the World Association of the Soil and Water Conservation and the International Soil Tillage Research Organization, and President-elect of the SSSA. He was a member of the U.S. National Committee on Soil Science of the National Academy of Sciences (1998-2002) and Lead Author of IPCC (1998-2000). 

He has served on the Panel on Sustainable Agriculture and the Environment in the Humid Tropics of the National Academy of Sciences.  He has authored and co-authored about 1100 research publications, in addition has written 9 and edited or co-edited 43 books.