Burlington Hawk Eye Publication Date: 05/13/2021 Page Number: 006 Title: Trinidad native wins 2021 World Prize Author: Size : 98 Inches Sq Burlington,IA Circulation: 20583 Keywords: The World Food Prize Trinidad native wins 2021 World Food Prize

Goes for 1st time to a woman of Asian heritage

children,” said Thilsted, a Trinidad na- Donnelle Eller Des Moines Register tive who worked with severely malnour- USA TODAYNETWORK ished children early in her career. “I be- lieved if you could keep people well- Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted on nourished, you would prevent them Tuesday became the first woman of from getting sick.” Asian heritage to win the World Food Thilsted, 71, said mothers would tell Prize, a$250,000 award that recognizes her they and their families felt stronger research sheconducted establishing the when their village had water. “I realized nutritional importance of tiny, com- it wasn’t the water that made them feel monly found fish. better. It was the that the water Her work has improved the diets, health andlivelihoods of millions across the world, the Des Moines-based World brought with them – the fish,” said Food Prize Foundation said. U.S. Secre- Thilsted, who is the nutrition and public health global lead at WorldFish, an tary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Agri- in- research center based in culture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Unit- ternational Nations Nutrition Chairwoman . ed Nao- Thilsted also is among those leading ko Yamamoto announced the award in a recorded message. the ’ work to build sus- The Des Moines nonprofit’s annual tainable and equitable food systems as symposium brings thousands of people well as addressing andnu- to in October to discuss how to im- trition. Thilsted worked bring more fish prove global food security and nutrition. to from the pond to the pot, conducting re- search that showed small and large fish Last year, however, the symposium was species could be farmed together in held virtually, due to the coronavirus field ponds. Her breakthrough helped public health emergency. increased fish consumption and pro- The foundation said Thilsted was the duction, transforming the diets and in- first to establish that many small fish comes of some of the world’s most vul- species commonly eaten across South- nerable people in Asia and , the east Asia are an important source of es- World Food Prize Foundation said. sential micronutrients and fatty acids “Dr. Thilsted figured out how these that improve the absorption of nutri- nutrient-rich small fish can be raised lo- ents from plant-based foods. Her work cally and inexpensively,” Blinken said in reshaped scientific understanding of a statement. “Now, millions of low-in- the benefits of fish in diets, the founda- come families across many countries, tion said in naming Thilsted this year’s including , Cambodia, , winner. Nepal, Burma, Zambia, Malawi are eat- “I started with the goal of improving ing small fish regularly, dried and fresh the nutrition and health of women and ... giving kids and breastfeeding moth- ers key nutrients that will protect chil- dren for a lifetime.”

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In Bangladesh, small-holder farmers that families could easily use, the foun- supply the majority of fish production dation said. from the country’s 4 million household ponds. In the 1970s, most fish farmers “cleaned” their ponds with pesticides, the World Food Prize Foundation said. “This expensive practice was “Improvements in processing prac- thought to eliminate competition from tices also resulted in reduced fish waste the small, lower-yielding native fish and loss and increased incomes for en- species before farmers stocked their trepreneurs, most of them women, who ponds with more marketable fish such produced these value-added foods,” the as carp or tilapia,” the group said. foundation said. Thilsted encourages “pond But Thilsted, along with other re- polycul- ture” together with growing orange searchers, found that small fish did not compete with large fish for space or sweet potatoes and vegetables along- food. Instead, leaving them in place side the ponds as a practical way forrice “in- farmers to diversify their farms and creased total productivity by as much as di- five times, as well as enhancing species ets. diversity and nutritional value of the “This award is an important recogni- of the essential but often production,” the WorldFoodPrize Foun- tion over- looked role of fish and aquatic food dation said. sys- In 2004, the Bangladesh Ministry of tems in agricultural research for devel- Thilsted said in a statement. Fisheries and Livestock banned clean- opment,” pondsand prohibited the use of In Bangladesh, Thilsted’s fish-based ing pes- approach is now recognized as more ticides to kill naturally occurring fish. “Thilsted had convinced the leadership cost-effective at supplying nutrients of a nation to convert to practices that than vegetable gardening, prompting were not only more economical and the government to promote pond poly- nu- asameans of tackling trition-sensitive, but reduced environ- culture malnutri- tion, the foundation said. mental pressures, habitat loss and health risks in rural communities,” the Theapproach hashelped Bangladesh foundation said. become the fifth-largest aquaculture producer in the world, supporting 18 Consumption of fish in the home in- when Thilsted introduced an million people and increasing produc- creased threefold since 2000, the group inexpensive, homemade gill net de- tivity for women to easily harvest said. signed mo- Thilsted is the seventh woman la, a tiny native fish species, in small amounts for daily household use, the awarded the World Food Prize, said group said. Foundation President Barbara Stinson. Though mola only accounted for15% Thilsted “continues to stand at the fore- of production by weight, they front of innovation, pushing the bound- contrib- of food 54% of the needed vitamin A, 42% aries nutrition-sensitive sys- uted truly changing the conversation of vitamin B12 anda quarter of the tems, calci- from not just feeding populations but um and iron in the diet for a family of four, the foundation said. nourishing them,” Stinson said in a Building on popular local recipes, statement. Thilsted also “developed original whole “As our global population grows, we dried fish food products, such as fish will need diverse sources of low-emis- chutney and fish powder, with four sion, high-nutrition foods like aquacul- times the nutrient density of fresh fish” ture,” Vilsack, Iowa’s former governor,

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said in a statement. “It is going tobecru- cial in feeding the world while reducing our impact on the climate. Dr. Thilsted has been a leader in this effort and cer- tainly a worthy recipient of the World Food Prize this year.” Thilsted is descended from a family of Indian Hindu immigrants to Trinidad andTobago,and she began her career as the first and only woman stationed in Tobago’s Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries. Later, while working at the Interna- tional Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Re- search in Bangladesh, Thilsted estab- lished a kitchen garden at the malnutri- tion rehabilitation center where more than 6,000 children were admitted ev- ery year. Along with an outreach pro- gram that worked with families and communities of discharged children to help improve diets, readmittance rates fell by two-thirds, the foundation said.

Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted. CONTRIBUTED/WORLD FOOD PRIZE/FINN THILSTED

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