World Food Prize

On 13th May 2025, Mariangela Hungria was awarded the 2025 World Food Prize for her groundbreaking work in using soil bacteria to boost Brazil's grain production.

Hungria has worked for over 40 years at Embrapa, Brazil’s state-run agricultural research agency, focusing on sustainable farming innovations.
Her research helped Brazil transform from a modest soybean producer in the 1980s to the world’s top exporter, now yielding over 170 million metric tons annually.
She pioneered the use of rhizobia bacteria to naturally supply nitrogen to soybean crops, reducing reliance on expensive, imported chemical fertilizers.
Today, her seed inoculation techniques are applied across more than 40 million hectares of soybean farmland in Brazil.
Hungria also developed microbial solutions using Azospirillum brasilense to improve root growth in crops like corn, enhancing resilience and nutrient uptake.