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.