Credit: Photo by Massimo Silvano, Trieste

The Academy of Science for the Developing World (TWAS) gave Dr. K.L. Heong the TWAS Prize for Agriculture, recognizing his pioneering work in ecology and integrating biological and social sciences to promote integrated pest management (IPM), which helped millions of rice farmers reduce their pesticide use and helped to communicate science to the rural poor. He received his prize from the president of TWAS, Professor J. Palis (right in photo), at the 18th TWAS General Meeting held in Trieste, Italy, on 13-14 November 2007. In accepting the prize, he delivered a presentation entitled “Communicating agriculture to rural farmers” urging developing- country scientists to do more than achieving scientific excellence and publishing papers. Click here to read synopsis of his presentation …

TWAS is an autonomous international organization founded in 1983. Its mission is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable development in the South. The Academy provides research grants to scientists and postgraduate fellows, organizes international scientific meetings, and recognizes scientific achievements with TWAS prizes for agriculture, biology, chemistry, earth sciences, engineering, mathematics, medicine, and physics. The TWAS prizes consist of a plaque and US$10,000. Dr. Sant Virmani was another IRRI scientist who won the TWAS Prize, in 2000.