September 16, 2025
TODAY 3:00 - Inaugural Ram Singh and Basant Kaur Gill Memorial Lecture to Feature Dr. Ravi P. Singh
The Inaugural Ram Singh and Basant Kaur Gill Memorial Lecture will feature Dr. Ravi P. Singh presenting “Bread Wheat for Global Food Security: From the Green Revolution to Modern Innovations.” The presentation will be Tuesday, September 16, at 3:00 pm in the Big 12 Room at the KSU Union. Refreshments will be served at 2:30. The presentation will also be available by Zoom: https://ksu.zoom.us/j/91201765940?pwd=BbcXxY7SjzRSvuoJwM0ppkWfQN8HfV.1
Wheat remains the cornerstone of global food security, supplying nearly 20% of the world’s calories and protein to billions of people. Yet, with a growing population and the mounting pressures of climate change, sustaining wheat production with both higher yields and improved nutritional quality stands as one of the greatest challenges of our time.
The inaugural “Ram Singh and Basant Kaur Gill Memorial Lecture” will trace the remarkable journey of wheat breeding from the Green Revolution — when Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug’s development of high-yielding, semi-dwarf wheat varieties transformed food production and helped avoid famine — to the cutting-edge innovations of the CIMMYT-led International Wheat Improvement Network that continue to shape progress today. The discussion will spotlight modern breeding strategies and global partnerships that have delivered high-yielding, climate-resilient, disease-resistant, and biofortified wheat varieties now grown by millions of smallholders across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. By connecting past achievements with present innovations, the seminar will under-score wheat’s vital role in ensuring future food and nutritional security while advancing agricultural sustainability.
Dr. Singh is a Distinguished Scientist (Emeritus) at CIMMYT, and is a global leader in wheat research and development. He holds degrees from Banaras Hindu University and the University of Sydney. Dr. Singh has contributed to the development of 775 wheat varieties grown globally on 40 million hectares by 30 million farmers, adding $2 billion annually to farm income through increased productivity and disease resistance, reducing chemical use while contributing to food and nutritional security and sustainable global agriculture. Dr. Singh has authored 400 research papers with over 56,000 citations.
The Ram Singh and Basant Kaur Gill Memorial Fund was created to honor Basant Kaur and her husband Ram Singh Gill, who raised nine sons and one daughter in the village of Dhudike in Punjab, India and whose farm benefited from advances in international agriculture research. The fund was created thanks to the kind generosity of Gill Family and Dr. Bikram Gill, founder of the Wheat Genetics Resource Center, Emeritus University Distinguished Professor, and Inaugural Bikram S. Gill Chair in Wheat Genetics.