Diamond is being honored for his "pioneering theories of crop domestication, the rise of agriculture and its influences on the development and demise of human societies, as well as its impact on the ecology of the environment." He shares this year's agriculture prize with Rutgers University Professor Joachim Messing.
"The enormous and impressive scope of Prof. Jared's scholarship (depth and breadth) that focuses on the role of agriculture in human development is worthy for recognition by the Wolf Prize in Agriculture," an announcement noted. "More importantly, this recognition promotes the implementation of measures, learnt from the history of agriculture, to ascertain success in agriculture's main objective, namely continued provision of food while preserving our natural resources."
