Thank You, Henry!

On Dec. 13, 2006, Henry M. Beachell passed away at his home in Pearland, TX. He was 100 years old.

If you don’t know who he was, you are not alone. I wasn’t aware of Beachell or his accomplishments until I read his obituary in The New York Times on Dec. 28.

Born in Waverly, NE, on Sept. 21, 1906, into a wheat-farming family, Beachell studied agronomy at the University of Nebraska and earned his master’s degree in plant breeding and genetics from Kansas State University in 1934.

Upon leaving school, Beachell found himself in a position not unfamiliar to many new graduates. He could not find a position in his chosen field of wheat research, so he opted to study rice ... and are we fortunate he did.

Early in his career, he developed long-grained rice varieties for USDA, and helped to create a seed bank for preserving rice varieties at Cornell University. In the 1960s, while working for the International Rice Research Institute, Los Baños, the Philippines, Beachell and his team crossed various rice plants from Taiwan and Indonesia to produce a new rice variety they named IR8. Shorter and sturdier, less prone to harvest damage and quicker to cultivate, IR8 increased yields two to three times and has helped nourish and feed millions in Asia and the Third World.

Although he was recognized during his lifetime with the Japan Prize from the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan in 1987 and a World Food Prize in 1996, Henry Beachell worked in relative obscurity.

Today, as food science and its related disciplines in the areas of plant breeding and genetics seem to be constantly under fire, it might be the right time to stop and consider the accomplishments and contributions of Henry Beachall and others like him who have done so much good.

So, next time you sit down to a meal with rice as a component, stop, raise your glass and simply say, or think, “Thank you, Henry.”

I know I will.