John Kerin, chair of the Crawford Fund and former Australian National Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, has been appointed International Ambassador of Goodwill for Hyderabad-headquartered ICRISAT – the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics.
The recognition was conferred on him by the ICRISAT Director General Dr William Dar at the annual Crawford Fund Parliamentary Conference on food security, being held in Canberra, an ICRISAT statement said today.
As an ICRISAT Ambassador of Goodwill, Kerin has agreed to champion the need for science-based solutions for farming in the fight against poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation, it said.
Kerin is the Chair of the Crawford Fund, a non-profit non-government organisation that works to raise awareness of the benefits to Australia and to developing countries from international agricultural research.
The ICRISAT Ambassadors of Goodwill programme was launched in May 2013 with the acceptance of Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to become the first Ambassador during his visit to the ICRISAT global headquarters, the statement added.