2004 John Phillips Award Recipient
Citation for Randolph Barker
'48
Awarded at assembly on October
12, 2004
Randolph Barker—Yours
has been a life of unstinting
and unselfish commitment to human
welfare. You have devoted 40
years of teaching and research
to the goal of eliminating hunger
and poverty by improving rice
crops, primarily in Asia. You
were a significant player in
the Green Revolution, the international
movement to address widespread
hunger in large areas of the
world. While not without controversy,
the associated technologies and
policies that were developed
increased food production in
parts of the world by 100 percent
between 1960 and 1990. You currently
address poverty and environmental
concerns by helping developing
nations better manage their land
and water resources. Your scholarly
publications number more than
one hundred and fifty, your former
students must number in the thousands;
the lives directly influenced
by your life’s work surely
number in the millions.
You graduated from Exeter in
1948. After two years at Princeton,
you took a trip out West that
pointed you toward the path you
have followed ever since. In
short, you discovered agriculture.
You transferred to Cornell and
earned your degree in agricultural
economics, the study of the economic
forces that affect the food industry
and millions of people’s
access to adequate nutrition.
You also took courses in Asian
history and politics, and began
asking questions about working
overseas. You served in the Army
for two years before earning
a master’s degree at Oregon
State University and a Ph.D.
at Iowa State University.
Since then, you have become
a truly global citizen, traveling
to more than 150 places in Asia
and Africa for your work. After
joining the faculty at Cornell
University in 1964, you became
a visiting professor at the University
of the Philippines College of
Agriculture in Los Banos. You
then became head of the economics
department at the International
Rice Research Institute, also
in Los Banos, a position you
held for twelve years, during
which time you helped to make
that institution one of the world’s
most successful training centers
for researchers in the rice industry.
Your fellow social scientists
have since recognized you as
a pioneer in both interdisciplinary
research with biological scientists
and using agricultural economics
principles to solve important
real-world problems, such as
making food accessible to poor,
rural communities during times
of political upheaval.
In 1978, you returned to Cornell
to teach economics, and administer
research projects overseas. You
served for seven years on the
board of trustees of the International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture
in Ibadan, Nigeria, and for two
years as its chairman. You served
a five-year term as director
of Cornell’s prestigious
Southeast Asia Program. Your
1985 book, The Rice Economy of
Asia, won an award for best publication
from the American Agricultural
Economics Association and has
been widely cited by scholars
ever since. Your colleagues have
honored you as one who has contributed
more than anyone else to the
establishment of agricultural
economics as the science that
guides policies for the greater
availability of food and wellbeing
to rural people in Southeast
Asia. To put it simply, you have
helped a multitude of local and
national governments in Asia
to create agricultural policies
that serve the greatest good.
A strong advocate of international
collaboration, intercultural
understanding and combining research
and teaching, you maintain that
your work has always been as
much about education and human
capital as about producing rice.
You take tremendous satisfaction
in seeing former students move
beyond your own scope of knowledge
and experience in their own teaching
and research. When you arrived
in the Philippines in 1965, the
same technologies for growing
rice had been in place for centuries.
Within one generation, things
had changed dramatically, and
yet your work was not done.
In 1995, you retired from Cornell
and joined the International
Water Management Institute, a
non-profit research organization
based in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
As interim director and now as
a principal researcher, you seek
to eradicate poverty and to ensure
food security in South Asia through
helping countries effectively
manage their resources and build
their own research capacities.
You also teach an annual short
course to mid-career students
in Vietnam as part of the Harvard-Fulbright
Economics Teaching Program, helping
to develop knowledgeable economic
leaders in that country.
Randolph Barker, you represent
a combination of selflessness
and achievement that is truly
worthy of emulation. During your
career, you have received many
professional honors from your
academic and professional colleagues
in the U.S. and abroad. Today
it is our honor, as an institution
dedicated to providing the best
possible education for some of
the most promising young people
in the world, to recognize you
as one who has united joyful
pursuit of knowledge with a deep
concern for the welfare of humanity,
and to present you with the 2004
John Phillips Award.
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