Dr. Mariangela Hungria will receive the $500,000 award for her work to harness biological processes to sustainably improve crop nutrition, yields and productivity.
A scientist whose discoveries helped Brazil become a global agricultural powerhouse has been named the 2025 World Food Prize Laureate.
Dr. Mariangela Hungria, a microbiologist from São Paulo, has developed dozens of biological seed and soil treatments that help crops source nutrients through soil bacteria, significantly increasing yields of major crops while also reducing the need for synthetic fertilizer.
Her products are estimated to have been used across more than 40 million hectares in Brazil, saving farmers up to US$40 billion a year in input costs while avoiding more than 180 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions per year.
Dr. Hungria’s work has helped improve yields of wheat, maize, rice, common beans, and other major crops, including soybean, which is now Brazil’s top agricultural export. Over her 40-year career with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), national soybean production increased from 15 million tons in 1979 to an anticipated 173 million tons in the coming harvest.
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Originally published by The World Food Prize May 13, 2025