Congratulations to Shakuntala Thilsted on winning this year’s Arrell Global Food Innovation Award!
The Arrell Global Food Innovation Awards, worth $100,000 each, recognize global excellence in food innovation and community impact.
The Scientific Award recognizes researchers who have “advanced understanding of food production, processing, distribution, consumption, safety and/or human nutrition, with a significant positive impact on society.”
Two awards are given annually by the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, whose mission is to “bring people together to conduct research, train the next generation of food leaders and shape social, industrial and governmental decisions, always ensuring food is the central priority.”
Award announcement
Sometimes, a new way of thinking can change the world. Throughout her career, Doctor Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted has focused on local, culturally food appropriate system solutions that strengthen the ways communities produce, supply, cook, and eat diverse and nutritious foods. Her holistic, nutrition sensitive solutions have transformed the health and livelihoods of millions of vulnerable people while preserving local environments.
Using her animal nutrition expertise, she took a closer look at the nutritional qualities of small fish by communities across Bangladesh. She realized these underestimated small fish had big nutritional benefits in diets, especially for women and children. Working with a team of researchers, she proved the small fish make good neighbors to bigger species in polyculture fish farming systems or productive additions to flooded rice fields, increasing family farmers’ income. She went on to encourage communities to grow micronutrient rich vegetables on the banks of the ponds and rice fields, further improving household access to nitritious foods.
To ensure the small fish moved from the pond to the plate, she developed nutrition-sensitive innovations like nets designed for women for harvesting and fish-based products like powders and chutneys, and recipes to make all these healthy foods part of delicious daily meals. By sustainably increasing the supply and consumption of these aquatic superfoods, she revolutionized the fight against malnutrition. Working with the global research center WorldFish, she took her nutrition sensitive approaches to aquatic food systems from Bangladesh and adopted them in countries across Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.
By building holistic solutions that improve the quantity, quality, and availability of aquatic food, she pushed the world closer to reaching the food and nutrition secure future. Her science and innovation has formed a growing shift in global agendas from feeding and growing population, to nourishing all people, nations, and our planet. The positive impact of her innovation continues to be multiplied through the generations of scientists, advocates, and farmers she mentors and inspires.
Congratulations to Doctor Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted, 2021 winner!
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