Andrew Colin McClung

Andrew Colin McClung, born October 15, 1923, and died February 2, 2015, was an American soil scientist who made transformative contributions to agricultural development in Brazil's Cerrado region. His research identified the soil problems that had limited the vast tropical plateau, including acidity, toxic levels of aluminum and deficiencies of several micronutrients, and he developed a solution using dolomitic lime to counter the aluminum toxicity while supplying essential minerals to the soil. His work, carried out alongside fellow 2006 World Food Prize laureates Edson Lobato and Alysson Paolinelli, helped transform land once considered closed and inaccessible into productive cropland and allowed Brazilian farmers to dramatically increase output over five decades, supporting a population that grew past 180 million and establishing Brazil as a global agricultural producer; the three shared the 2006 World Food Prize for the achievement.