Overview

• Mariangela Hungria, a microbiologist at Brazil's Embrapa, has been awarded the 2025 World Food Prize, receiving $500,000 for her contributions to sustainable agriculture.
• Hungria’s work on biological nitrogen fixation enabled Brazil to become the world’s largest soybean producer, increasing output from 15 million to over 170 million metric tons since the 1980s.
• Her rhizobia-based seed inoculation techniques are now used on over 40 million hectares of Brazil’s soybean farms, reducing dependency on costly and environmentally harmful nitrogen fertilizers.
• Hungria also developed other microbial solutions, such as Azospirillum brasilense bacteria, which improve root growth in crops like corn, enhancing nutrient and water access.
• The World Food Prize Foundation will formally honor Hungria at a ceremony in October, recognizing her decades-long impact on global food security and sustainable farming practices.