Pedro A. Sánchez, a soil scientist whose career reshaped tropical agriculture and strengthened global food security, died on January 12, 2026. He was 85.
“Pedro Sánchez was a scientist of rare vision and deep humanity,” says Mashal Husain, President of the World Food Prize Foundation. “He understood that research matters most when it reaches farmers’ fields, restores dignity, and creates lasting opportunities for communities that have been overlooked for far too long.” Sánchez devoted more than six decades to restoring degraded soils and advancing agricultural systems that improved livelihoods for smallholder farmers across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
A native of Cuba, he grew up on his family’s farm outside Havana, traveling the country with his father, an agronomist. After earning his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from Cornell University, Sánchez began his academic career at North Carolina State University, where he helped establish the Tropical Soils Research Program. His early work demonstrated how acid tropical soils in Brazil’s Cerrado could become productive farmland and helped develop alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture in the Peruvian Amazon.
Sánchez later held leadership roles at major international research institutions, including the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines and the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical in Colombia.
From 1991 to 2001, he served as director general of the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi, where he helped elevate agroforestry as a core strategy for sustainable development. Under his leadership, the organization evolved into a globally respected scientific institution, emphasizing farmer-centered, landscape-scale approaches.
After leaving Nairobi, Sánchez joined Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directed programs linking soil science to global development goals. As co-chair of the United Nations Millennium Project Hunger Task Force, he helped demonstrate that investments in soil fertility could double or triple food production across diverse agroecological zones in Africa.
In 2016, he joined the University of Florida as a research professor, where he taught graduate courses in tropical soils and continued mentoring young scientists. Sánchez authored the textbook Properties and Management of Soils in the Tropics, first published in 1987 and revised in 2019, which remains widely used in courses on tropical soils worldwide.
His work earned international recognition, including the World Food Prize in 2002, a MacArthur Fellowship in 2004, and election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Upon receiving the World Food Prize, Sánchez and his wife and scientific partner, Dr. Cheryl Palm, committed the award funds to support farmers and scientists working to eradicate hunger in lower-income contexts.
Despite his many accolades, those who worked with Sánchez often point first to his character.
Sánchez’s contributions to today’s agronomic knowledge and the welfare of millions of smallholder farm households are immense, Thom Jayne, Foundation Professor emeritus of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University, tells Food Tank. “As massive as those contributions are, what impressed me even more was his radiant warmth, altruism, and courageous heart,” Jayne says. “Equity and fairness mattered deeply to him. It was an honor to collaborate with Pedro and his partner, Cheryl Palm. Together, they stood up for African organizations and gave selflessly of their time and energy to support African-led agricultural research systems.”
“He was a humble giant among people,” says Jack M. Payne, former University of Florida Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Sánchez passed away two years after the death of Palm. His legacy endures in healthier soils, strengthened institutions, and the many communities whose food security improved through his work.
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Photo courtesy of Farming First
