In 1980 the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) received the King Baudouin International Development Prize "for its contribution to the qualitative and quantitative improvement of food production in the world." The prize was established to reward "persons or organizations, irrespective to nationality, which have made a significant contribution to the development of the Third World, as also to solidarity and good relations between industrial and developing countries and between their peoples. The prize is likewise intended to remind Belgium and international public opinion that the problems of development remain as serious today, and even more so, as shortly after the Second World War, when they gradually came to light in the collective consciousness of nations."

The following year, after consultations with the Kingdom of Belgium, and using funds received from the King Baudouin International Development Prize, the CGIAR established its own biennial King Baudouin Award -to acknowledge and stimulate agricultural research and other activities relevant to the System and to recognize an achievement stemming from the work of a Center." Further, the guidelines state: "The Award should acknowledge and stimulate agricultural research and other activities relevant to the CGIAR System and recognize an International Center s contribution to the development of the Third World. and agricultural production of ordinary farmers. The Award is intended to recognize the application, use and impact of a particular technology, material or knowledge developed by any of the International Centers. However, significant research achievements with great potential impact should receive full consideration and should not be penalized because the impact has not yet been seen.

• 1982: The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)

2008: CGIAR Collaborative Research Program for Sustainable Agricultural Production in Central Asia and the Caucasus for reviving the agricultural economies of newly emerged Central Asia and Caucasus countries. Initiated in 1998 by nine CGIAR Centers and eight National Agricultural Research Systems of participating CAC countries, the CAC Program supported agricultural reform initiatives greatly needed in the region.

2006: International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) for an innovative, ongoing series of maize-breeding projects in Southern and Eastern Africa that have produced more than 50 new varieties planted on at least 1 million hectares. To evaluate the varieties under farmers’ conditions, researchers created a series of so-called “mother-baby” trials managed by researchers as well as farmers. The “mother” trial may involve as many as 12 varieties sown under varied researcher-designed treatments. The mother trial is located close to the community and is managed by schools, colleges, or extension agencies. The “babies” are satellite subsets of the mother trial, comprising approximately four to six varieties in the fields of participating farmers using their own inputs and equipment. “This mother-baby method allows as many as 200 or more farmers in a country to assess a subset of the most promising new maize varieties,” explains CIMMYT researcher Marianne Banziger. “Farmers and researchers use results from both types of trials to assess a variety’s suitability for different environments and its acceptability to farmers.”

2004: Rice-Wheat Consortium of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (led by the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) for combining their efforts in promoting conservation agriculture benefiting large numbers of farm families in the Indo-Gangetic plains of South Asia. Thanks to the efforts of the consortium and partners, zero tillage is now practiced on over 1.3 million hectares lowering land preparation costs and increasing farmer incomes. In 2003 alone, farmers in India and Pakistan derived $100 million in net estimated benefits. The consortium is helping farmers to plant different crops such as quality protein maize, pigeonpea, mungbean, chickpea, lentil, faba beans, potatoes and vegetables for increasing incomes and household nutrition security.

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)

The 2002 King Baudouin Award went to scientists of the India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Syria-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) for developing new chickpea varieties with higher tolerance to drought and heat, better resistance to pests and diseases that provide stable and economically profitable yields.

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important food legume, rich in protein, and grown on 11 million hectares by poor farmers in south and southeast Asia and west Asia and north Africa region. The benefits of this research are having positive impacts in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Syria, and other rainfed agricultural areas. This research partnership involved collaboration between scientists and farmers in more than 30 countries.

WARDA: Development of New Rice Strain "NERICA"

The 2000 CGIAR King Baudouin International Agricultural Research Award went to WARDA for developing a new strain of rice that is transforming agriculture in a large portion of West Africa, potentially benefiting 20 million rice farmers-mostly women - of the region, and helping reduce crippling rice import bills.

Dubbed NERICA (for NEw RIce for AfriCA), the new rice combines the ruggedness of local African (Oryza glaber-rima) rice species with the phenomenally high productivity traits of Asian rice (Oryza sativa) that was the mainstay of the Green Revolution.

The new rice, the product of an 'interspe-cific hybrid cross' in sciencespeak,
smothers grain-robbing weeds like its African parents, resists droughts and
pests, and is able to thrive in poor soils. The trait of higher productivity
conferred by the Asian rices mean that with a few additional inputs, farmers
using NERICA rice can double production and raise incomes.

Food means rice for many people in West Africa today, and demand for rice is spiraling. NERICA is helping to meet multiple needs food, nutrition, and
income for millions of people in the humid tropics of West Africa, says Kanayo Nwanze, director general of WARDA. The new strain of rice is
helping us move toward sustainable agri-culture in some of the most ecologically fragile areas of the world.

CIAT, IITA and IRRI partnered with WARDA in the NERICA effort. Other partners included a broad range of stake-holders, from farmers, to national
agricultural research programs in 17 African countries, China's Yunan Academy of Agricultural Science, and scientists at advanced research institutions such as Japan's International Research Center for Agricultural Science (JIRCAS),

The University of Tokyo, France's Institute for Research and Development, UK's John Innes Centre, and Cornell University. Generous support from The Rockefeller Foundation helped WARDA's rice breeders to achieve success.

ICRISAT: High-yielding Disease Resistant Pigeonpea

The 1998 CGIAR's King Baudouin Award was presented to the International Crops Research Institute in the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) for the development of high-yielding and disease resistant pigeonpea varieties and for its contribu-tion to agriculture and human welfare in developing countries. This is the second time in a row that ICRISAT has won the award, the highest accolade conferred by the CGIAR for outstanding scientific work.

Pigeonpea is a grain legume that provides protein to the diets of more than one billion people worldwide, yet until the mid-1970s it had received little attention from scientific researchers. ICRISAT's work first targeted a plant disease, Fusarium, which had restricted output for millions of small holders in South Asia and Africa. An impact study in central and southern India found the value of these improvements to exceed US$100 million, mostly accruing to small farmers.

According to an analysis carried out by the CGIAR Technical Advisory Committee that judged the Award, changes in the plant's architecture are just one of the many impressive innovations pioneered by ICRISAT. TAC wrote:

"Not only has the plant height been reduced but also the growing period altered from 10 months down to three or four, making it possible to raise the crop in cereal-legume rotation. This is the first example of a hybrid legume coming into commercial production. In terms of impact, ICRISAT estimates that hybrids produce 25 to 35 percent more grain than traditional varieties. The spread of the hybrids through partnerships, beyond South Asia to Eastern and Southern Africa, enhances the international public goods nature of the output."

ICRISAT : Pearl Millet Research

Pearl millet is grown in the driest areas of the semi-arid tropics, home to one-sixth of the word's population. One of the most significant achievements of the ICRISAT scientists was to incorporate resistance to diseases that have traditionally afflicted pearl millet, a staple food for tens of millions of poor people in Africa and in India. ICRISAT scientists have also identified two new classes of resistance : recovery resistance by which pathogen and host coexist without affecting yield and complete resistance to virulent strains (i.e. resistance that remains effective regardless of how much inoculum is used in attempts to initiate infection.

It has been conservatively estimated that the annual returns to India's farmers from pearl millet varieties developed by ICRISAT total $50 million -- more than 12 times the cost of its investment in pearl millet research.

ICRISAT's work on pearl millet earned the King Baudouin Award in 1996.

IITA: Black Sigatoka - Scourge of Plantain and Banana Production

Caused by the fungus Mycosphaerella Fijiensis, black sigatoka is particularly devastating for plantain production causing yield reductions of 30-50% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Previous research to remove biotic and abiotic stresses in Musa was limited, in part due to indications that the crop was intractable to genetic improvement by classical methods, since most cultivated Musa are triploids and, therefore are almost completely sterile.

Since 1987. IITA has developed parthenocarpic plantain germplasm resistant to black sigatoka through a combination of conventional and new approaches, including interspecific hybridization, policy manipulations, in vitro culture, field testing and selection.

The total investment of IITA in plantain breeding in the development of TMPx (tetraploid plantain hybrids) germplasm was about $2 million over five years. The ratio of potential gain to investment, therefore, was $6.2 billion to $2 billion; in other words, for every $1 invested by IITA in the development of the 14 improved TMPx lines with black sigatoka resistance, the African economy could have a yearly gain of about $3,100 assuming that all of the area now planted to banana will be cropped with improved hybrids; or a yearly gain of $1,575 per $1 invested in research, assuming that such a change will occur on only half the total area. IITA's research achievement gained the King Baudouin Award in 1994.

CIP : Integrated Pest Management and the "Hairy Potato"

CIP and its partner institutions developed a series of integrated pest management practices that have proven effective in controlling the major insect pests of potato. Among these are the use of naturally occurring fungi, bacteria and viruses; predators and parasites; sex pheromones; and insect repellent plants. Extensive testing of these technologies has shown them to be capable of replacing up to 90 percent of the insecticide currently used on potato.

The host plant resistance work has led to a hybrid potato population (dubbed by the media as the 'hairy potato ) with resistance to a range of insect pests, including potato tuber moth, aphids and the Colorado potato beetle.

The resistance of the so-called hairy potato is derived from a wild diploid potato species (Solanum berthaultii) with high densities of glandular trichomes. The trichomes (long-stalked and shortstalked) on the plant's surface trap and kill insects as they try to feed or reproduce. This is the first recorded instance of a wild species being used to produce an insect-resistant potato for human consumption. The new hybrids were developed by an international consortium of researchers.

CIP's research, leading to the development of a series of effective integrated pest management practices and the creation of a hybrid population (the 'hairy potato') with resistance to a range of insect pests, was considered an outstanding accomplishment, and received the King Baudouin Award in 1992.

IITA and CIAT: Classical Biological Control of the Cassava Mealybug

In 1990, IITA and CIAT won the King Baudouin Award for their successful collaboration in classical biological control of the cassava mealybug in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The first release of beneficial insects to help control the cassava mealybug was conducted by the Biological Control Program (BCP) of IITA and personnel of the Plant Protection and Regulatory Service (PPRS) in March of 1984 near Accra, Ghana.

Biological control of the cassava mealybug worked from the start: the introduced wasps, multiplied at IITA and released in cassava-growing regions, readily established themselves in the African environment and promptly set about reducing mealybug depredation by half or better, to virtually subeconomic levels in many areas. By 1990, natural enemies of the mealybug had been released at about 160 sites in 20 tropical African countries. The parasitic wasp E. Iopezi has made itself at home over more than 2.7 million square kilometers in the 25 countries of the continent's cassava belt.

Over the past few years control efforts have aimed increasingly at eastern and southern Africa, the last areas of the mealybug's invasion. During 1990, national programs in eight countries conducted mealybug surveys, releases of natural enemies, and follow-up activity with IITA guidance and support. Good control with E. Iopezi is reported from most treated areas.

Biological control of the mealybug continues today in the form of a "firefighting" force, to lend help to countries when fresh outbreaks threaten to get out of hand, especially along the leading edge of the dispersing population. It is also mobilized as a training resource for strengthening of national programs.

CIMMYT and Veery "S" Bread Wheats

CIMMYT's Wheat Program uses a breeding strategy with four interrelated features large numbers of crosses' shuttle breeding; heavy disease pressure; and international, multilocational testing.

In the spring of 1973, CIMMYT breeders crossed Buho "S", a Mexican spring wheat, to Kavkaz, a Russian winter wheat. Fl plants were then top-crossed to another spring wheat with parentage of an Indian variety, Kalyansona, and a Mexican variety, Bluebird. The F2 progeny were very promising and were advanced for further selection. In 1977-1978 this cross was given the breeding name "Veery".

In 1981 Mexico released the first three Veery-based varieties - Glennson 81, Genaro 81, and Ures 81. Pakistan also released a Veery variety, Pak 81. Since then other countries have released Veery-based cultivars and rapid adoption by farmers seems evident. Since the first releases, over 3 million hectares of Veery-based wheat are being cultivated worldwide. In Mexico about 80% of the total wheat area is Veery based.

The reasons for this popularity seem clear. Veery wheats have both higher yield potential and greater yield stability. Veery "S" has consistently had 10% higher yields than other high-yielding varieties, thus supporting its claim to have broken the "yield barrier."

This continued high-yield indicates good yield stability. Several reasons are cited for this stability; disease resistance, better drought tolerance, better tolerance to cold temperatures early in the crop cycle and excessive heat tolerance at the later growth states. In acid soils they perform better because they are able to extract phosphorus more efficiently. And finally, Veery have a compact plant type that results in a higher harvest index because there are more large, upright heads per square meter. the plant density can be increased; and the plants stay green for a longer period of time.

The Veerv wheats gained CIMMYT the King Baudouin Award in 1988.

IITA: Breeding for Maize Streak Virus Resistance

In 1975 IITA scientists began a program to overcome maize streak virus (MSV), a major endemic disease affecting maize throughout Africa. A multidisciplinary team of entomologists, virologists, pathologists, and breeders worked to solve this problem through resistance breeding.

IITA entomologists developed a colony of the leafhopper vector (Cicadulina trianula), fed them on streak-infested plants, and released them on maize germplasm within the confines of a screenhouse. Since then the method has been refined so that it is now possible to rear 200,000 leafhoppers and infest 50,000 plants per week in the field.

Two source of resistance were initially identified: IB32, a streak-resistant line developed from the maize population TZ-Y and "La Revolution" developed in Reunion Island. These two sources combined to show a high degree of tolerance to the virus.

With a reliable screening method and appropriate sources of resistance, IITA and CINIMYT breeders initiated an intensive breeding program. More than 100 varieties and hybrids were developed to encompass all of the relevant farming systems and ecologies in Africa. In 1986, IITA received the King Baudouin Award for this research achievement.

CIAT: Resistance to Bean Golden Mosaic Virus

When CTAT began working on the Bean Golden Mosaic Virus (BGMV) in 1972, field resistance was unknown. In 1974 a USAID bilateral project at Guatemala's Instituto de Ciencia y Technologia Agricolas (ICTA) funded the screening of more than 6,000 entries from the CIAT gene bank for BGMV resistance under natural heavy pressure of the disease. Virus pressure was further increased by surrounding the experimental plots with lima beans (a virus source) and with cotton, tobacco, and soybeans to attract the whitefly vector.

These germplasm screenings revealed several resistant parental lines from Colombia, El Salvador, and Costa Rica. Guatemala and El Salvador were selected as the growing site for most of the experiments because these countries were the most heavily attacked by BGMV.

The first crosses were made at CIAT in 1975-1976. Offspring of these crosses were selected and by 1978-1979, on-farm yield testing showed encouraging results. One cross, DOR 41, grown without using chemical inputs against whitefly, yielded 1300 kg/ha, while the BGMV-susceptible commercial variety yielded 550 kg/ha. With chemical protection DOR 42, another cross, yielded 60% more than the commercial variety.

In 1979, three lines were released. The new varieties quickly spread and by 1982-1983, 40% of the small and 60% of the large bean growers were growing the new varieties.

CIAT's research achievement won the King Baudouin Award in 1984.

IRRI: IR36 RICE Variety

The first King Baudouin Award, in 1982, went to IRRI for its breeding program in the development in IR36, an early maturing, high-yielding rice variety with a broad spectrum of resistance to biological stresses and tolerance for numerous physicochemical stresses.

IR36 was the first improved rice variety to have multiple resistance to all the major diseases and insects in the Philippines; including blast, bacterial blight, tungro, grassy stunt, green leafhopper, brown planthopper, and stem borer; and in Sri Lanka and India it had resistance to gall midge. In wetlands, it was tolerant of soil salinity iron and boron toxicity, and zinc deficiency; in drylands, it was tolerant or iron deficiency and aluminum toxity, and also had a moderate level of drought resistance.

Yield potential was stable at 4 to 6 tons/ha under most farmers conditions. In its best trials it yielded 9 tons/ha.