Academy Fellow Professor Graham Farquhar AO FAA FRS has become the first Australian to win a Kyoto Prize—the most prestigious international award for fields not traditionally honoured with a Nobel Prize.
Professor Farquhar has won the 2017 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences for his life’s work in plant biophysics and photosynthesis, which has involved research on water-efficient crops and the impacts of climate change.
He has helped develop new water-efficient varieties of wheat, improved global food security, and found evaporation and wind speeds are slowing as the climate changes.
Professor Farquhar will receive $600,000 as part of the award.
Kyoto Prizes have been awarded annually since 1985 in three categories—Advanced Technology, Basic Sciences, and Arts and Philosophy—to people ‘who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural, and spiritual betterment of mankind’.
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