Dr. Rattan Lal is a world-renowned soil scientist and Distinguished University Professor at The Ohio State University, where he has served since 1987. He currently directs the CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration, a leading institution dedicated to advancing soil-based climate solutions. Born in India in 1944, Dr. Lal began his distinguished career with the University of Sydney from 1968 to 1969 before conducting groundbreaking research at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria for nearly two decades. His early work in Africa established foundational principles for sustainable soil management that would later transform global agricultural practices and climate change mitigation strategies.
Dr. Lal's pioneering research on soil carbon sequestration has revolutionized our understanding of how agricultural soils can simultaneously address food security and climate change challenges. With an impressive h-index of 159 and over 116,000 citations, he has authored more than 1,000 scientific publications that have fundamentally reshaped soil science and agricultural policy worldwide. His work convincingly demonstrated that practices like no-till farming could effectively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in soils, thereby mitigating climate change while enhancing agricultural productivity. This research has directly influenced global agricultural practices, with his models indicating that restoring soil health could potentially double global grain yields while reducing land use by 30 percent and decreasing fertilizer requirements.
Recognized with numerous prestigious awards including the 2019 Japan Prize, 2020 World Food Prize, and 2018 Glinka World Soil Prize, Dr. Lal has profoundly shaped international approaches to sustainable agriculture and climate policy. He has mentored over 370 researchers from around the globe, building a vast international network of scientists committed to advancing soil health and carbon management. Demonstrating extraordinary commitment to his field, Dr. Lal personally established the Dr. Rattan Lal Endowed Professor position at Ohio State with a $1 million donation from his award winnings and personal funds. Currently leading the C-FARM research project launched in 2021, he continues to pioneer innovative approaches to carbon farming that validate how soils capture and store carbon dioxide, ensuring his legacy of transforming degraded soils into solutions for humanity's most pressing environmental challenges.
