Swiss agronomist Hans Herren received the Right Livelihood Award “for his expertise and pioneering work in promoting a safe, secure and sustainable global food supply”. The four winners of the prize often referred to as ‘Alternative Nobel Prizes’ were announced on Thursday at a press conference in Stockholm. Hans Herren, president of Biovision Foundation and the Millennium Institute, is a leading expert on biological pest control and sustainable agriculture. He has been credited with saving millions of lives by implementing a biological pest control programme when a new pest threatened the cassava root in Africa. Herren co-chaired the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) and has constantly been working at international level to promote the implementation of the report. The laureate sees the award as an endorsement of his vision: A world which can feed nine billion people expected to live on our planet in 2050 with sufficient and healthy food. “This is only possible, if we invest in smallholder structures with sustainable and efficient ecological cultivation methods and move away from the paradigm of industrial agriculture which overuses natural resources and destroys biodiversity”, Herren said.