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Gebisa Ejeta
He raised the yield ceiling of a grain that feeds hundreds of millions — then gave the seed away.
The rise
Born in the village of Wollonkomi to Oromo parents, Ejeta walked twenty kilometres every Sunday to the nearest school and boarded there for the week. He studied at what is now Haramaya University before earning a doctorate at Purdue, where he built his career as a sorghum breeder.
What they did
In 1980s Sudan he released Africa's first commercial drought-tolerant hybrid sorghum. He then identified the chemical signal sorghum roots emit to wake the parasitic weed Striga, and bred lines that stay silent. From 1994 the seed spread through a dozen Striga-endemic countries, yielding up to four times local varieties even in drought years. He won the 2009 World Food Prize.
The full picture
A consistent public advocate of biotechnology and GM crops in Africa, he stands against seed-sovereignty campaigners, including Ethiopia's own Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher. His career was built almost entirely inside a US land-grant university, which weakens the claim that African research systems produced the result.
Why it matters
The prize is not the story; the choice is. He insisted the varieties travel as open seed through African extension services rather than under licence — a decision about who owns agricultural progress.
“We need to build stronger human and institutional capacity in African nations to help people feed themselves.”
What citizens said
Afrobarometer Round 9 (2021–2023) — Ethiopia
% who say 'trust somewhat' or 'trust a lot' · Afrobarometer Dispatch No. 891