An Indian scientist, Modadugu Vijay Gupta, has been named winner of the US $250,000 World Food Prize for his work to enhance nutrition for over one million people, mostly very poor women, through the expansion of aquaculture and fish farming in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.

Gupta, whose hometown is Bapatla in Andhra Pradesh, was till his recent retirement the Assistant Director General at WorldFish, an international fisheries research institute under the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) based at Penang in Malaysia.

Gupta's name was announced by the World Food Prize Foundation last week at a ceremony at the US State Department at Washington. Making the announcement, Ambassador Kenneth M Quinn, World Food Prize Foundation president, said Gupta made small-scale aquaculture a viable means for over one million very poor farmers and women to improve their family's nutrition and well-being.

Gupta's work has had an impact particularly in Bangladesh, Laos and other countries in Southeast Asia.

As a result of Gupta's efforts, freshwater fish production has risen dramatically in these countries by as much as three to five times, research indicates.

He developed unique methods of fish farming, requiring little cost while causing no environmental damage. Resultantly, landless farmers and poor women have turned a million abandoned pools, roadside ditches, seasonally flooded fields and other bodies of water into mini-factories churning out fish for food and income.

According to Gupta, research to increase fish production increases the availability of nutrition in poor families, increases their household income and also results in improved social status for women in the families.

Since capture fishing is declining, aquaculture can be of significance in developing countries, says he.

Gupta is the sixth citizen of India to receive the World Food Prize since it was established in 1986. Previous recipients include M S Swaminathan, 1987; Verghese Kurien, 1989; Gurdev Khush, 1996; B R Barwale, 1998; and Surinder K Vasal, 2000.

This prize will be formally presented to Gupta at a ceremony on Oct 13 in the Iowa State Capitol Building in Des Moines, USA.