College STation, Texas
December 14, 2006
Dr. Henry (Hank) Beachell, a 1996 World Food Prize winner who
developed a high-yielding rice variety that fed the
malnourished and poverty-stricken, died Dec. 13. He was 100.
Beachell was a retired Texas
Agricultural Experiment Station researcher. He was best
known for improving a rice variety used as a genetic base for
most of today's varieties. Because of this, he was dubbed as the
person most responsible for the "Green Revolution" in rice.
Dr. Ed Runge, professor and
former head of the soil and crop sciences department at Texas
A&M University, said Beachell "was the person most responsible
for development and distribution of the high-yielding,
short-statured rice varieties adopted throughout the world."
"And in particular Asia,
beginning with IR 8 in 1966," Runge recalled, "and he's fondly
known as the father of short-statured stiff straw, high-yielding
semi-dward varieties."
Beachell shared the World Food
Prize award with Dr. Gurdev Singh Khush, who began working with
him at the International Rice Research Institute in 1967. In
1987, Beachell received the Japan Prize of the Science and
Technology Foundation of Japan.
Beachell was a joint employee
of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Experiment Station
during his career. He worked at the Beaumont station - now the
Texas A&M Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Beaumont
- from 1932 to 1963. While at Beaumont, he helped introduce nine
rice varieties, which eventually counted for more than 90
percent of U.S. long-grain rice production. He also took part in
research and teaching tours of rice production areas in India,
Central and South America.
After retiring from his
research position in at Beaumont in 1963, he accepted a position
at the rice institute in the Philippines. While there, he helped
discover the IR8 rice variety released in 1966. The variety set
yield records ranging from 6 tons to 8 tons of grain per hectare
(per 100 acres) on experimental fields in several Asian
countries, more than doubling previous yields.
"Hank was a personal friend
beginning in 1968 and that friendship blossomed when he returned
to Texas in 1981," Runge said.
After his return to Texas,
Beachell's work in hybrid rice development continued at RiceTec,
a research-based hybrid rice company based in Alvin.
Visitation and viewing is
scheduled from 5-8 p.m. Dec. 18 at the Oak Park Funeral Home at
300 Oak Park Dr. in Alvin. Funeral services are scheduled for 11
a.m. Dec. 19 at the First United Methodist Church at 611 W.
South St. in Alvin. A reception will follow in the fellowship
hall after the service, followed by interment at South Park
Cemetery in Pearland.
Writer: Blair Fannin
Los Banos, Philippines
Source:
International Rice Research
Institute (IRRI)
Standing on the shoulders of giants
It’s a long way from the small Texas town of Alvin to the lush
green rice fields of Tamil Nadu in southern India. Despite this,
the two places have played interesting roles in one of the most
remarkable success stories in the history of efforts to ease
human hunger and suffering.
This largely unknown link was highlighted earlier this month by
the death of Henry “Hank” Beachell, one of the plant breeding
pioneers behind the “miracle rice” IR8, which launched the Green
Revolution in Asia 40 years ago. Dr. Beachell passed away at his
home in Alvin, Texas, on 13 December 2006.
Less than 3 months previously, Dr. Beachell had celebrated his
100th birthday on 21 September. Friends and family gathered in
Alvin to celebrate the event and reminisce about his remarkable
life and the huge impact it had on millions of rice farmers and
consumers across Asia.
Dr. Beachell played a leading role in the development of IR8 at
the Philippine-based International Rice Research Institute
(IRRI) in the 1960s. The short, sturdy cultivar was the first
high-yielding modern rice variety. At a time of rapidly
increasing populations in Asia, IR8—which resisted lodging
(falling over) and allowed farmers to harvest more than one crop
per year—helped avert widespread famine.
Born and raised on a wheat farm in western Nebraska, Dr.
Beachell originally planned to work on wheat. Following
university, though, the only position he could find, at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA), dealt with rice. It was a
twist of fate that would prove fortunate for rice farmers and
consumers across the world.
After 32 years at the USDA, Dr. Beachell came to IRRI, where he
started work on IR8. In 1996, he and former IRRI principal plant
breeder Gurdev Khush received the World Food Prize, known
informally as the “Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture.”
“Hank’s achievements in rice research–especially his role in the
development of IR8–were extraordinary and absolutely deserving
of the international acclaim and recognition that they
received,” the director general of IRRI, Robert S. Zeigler said.
“If we have achieved anything at IRRI since Hank and his
colleagues retired from IRRI in the 1970s, it is very much in
the context of Isaac Newton’s famous quote: If we have seen a
little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Perhaps, one of the most famous stories of the success of IR8
comes from Tamil Nadu in southern India. After a bumper rice
crop in his first season growing IR8, a local farmer K.N.
Ganesan was so impressed that he named his second son in honor
of the variety, telling researchers later that it provided the
rice he needed to feed his young family. Now in his 40s, Mr. IR8
continues to farm rice in Tamil Nadu–living proof of the impact
and achievements of a rice breeder from Texas. |