Prabhu L. Pingali

• Director, Agricultural and Development Economics Division, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy, September 2002 –present
• Director, Economics Program, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico, June 1996 – August 2002
• Program Leader and Agricultural Economist, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines, April 1987 to June 1996
• Visiting Scholar, Stanford University, Food Research Institute, May - August 1994
• Affiliate Professor (Concurrent appointment), University of the Philippines at Los Baños, April 1987 to 1996
• Economist (Consultant), World Bank, Agriculture and Rural Development Department , Washington, DC, Sept. 1982 - March 1987
• Ph.D (Economics) North Carolina State University at Raleigh, 1982
• Master of Arts (Honours) in Economics, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Rajasthan, India, 1977
• President, International Association of Agricultural Economists (2003-2006)
• Vice-President, International Association of Agricultural Economists (1997-2000)

Prabhu Pingali, an Indian national, has devoted his entire career to agriculture in developing countries, living and working in all three developing continents. His research and advisory work has focused on technological change, environmental externalities, and agricultural development policy. He has published prolifically, authoring (or co-authoring) 9 books and 90 journal articles and book chapters. He is the President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (2003-06).

Pingali obtained a Ph.D in Economics from North Carolina State University and joined the World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department in 1982. His first book, Agricultural Mechanization and the Evolution of Farming Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, won AAEA’s Quality of Research Discovery Award in 1988. Starting in 1987, he spent 15 years in the CGIAR, first at IRRI in the Philippines and then at CIMMYT in Mexico. His most significant work during this time was to quantify the human and environmental costs of pesticide use, for which he received multiple international awards. He is currently the Director of the Agricultural and Development Economics Division, a policy think tank within the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations . He co-chaired the Millennium Eco-system Assessment Working Group on Plausible Scenarios for ecosystem services and human well-being (2000-2005).