Daniel Hillel
Award Name : World Food Prize
Year of Award : 2012
Award for : Agriculture
Location : Sde Boker, Southern District, Israel
Daniel Hillel is an Israeli water and soil scientist. Hillel's development of micro-irrigation techniques has dramatically improved agricultural output and water efficiency in the Negev desert of Israel, across the Middle East, and in chronically dry regions around the world. Throughout his career, Hillel has used science to bridge cultural and religious divides and improve livelihoods in over 30 countries, including Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, and Cyprus. Most recently, he has been researching ways to adjust agricultural techniques in adaptation to increasing water shortages resulting from climate change.He is currently working as a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies at the The Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York.In 2012, he won the World Food Prize for Conceiving and implementing micro-irrigation in arid and dry land regions.