P. K. Ramachandran Nair is an Indian American agricultural scientist, Distinguished Professor of Agroforestry and International Forestry at the School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences (SFFGS), Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), University of Florida. He is widely recognized as a pioneering figure in the field of agroforestry and is often referred to as the “father of agroforestry.” He received global recognition including the Humboldt Prize (2006). The specific areas of his research include agroforestry in the tropics and subtropics, integrated farming systems, soil carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation, ecosystem services, and soil fertility management. He has written over 200 peer-reviewed articles, 17 books and over 80 book chapters. Nair is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America, and the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India, He has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from the Kerala Agricultural University, the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain; University of Guelph, Canada; Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana; and Kyoto University, Japan.
Early life and education Nair was born and raised in Kerala, India. He received a B.Sc. in Agriculture in 1961 and an M.Sc. in Agronomy in 1968, both from Kerala University. He then received a Ph.D. in Agronomy from Pantnagar University in 1971. He worked as a post-doctoral fellow for a year at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in England.
Career In 1972, Nair joined the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) at Kasaragod, Kerala, as an Agronomist.[1] In 1976, he moved to Germany as a Senior Humboldt Fellow at Goettingen University; there he received a Doctor of Science degree in Tropical Agriculture. In 1978, Nair joined ICRAF, the World Agroforestry Centre, a CGIAR Institution, which he co-founded, and moved to Nairobi, Kenya, and served as a principal scientist for about 10 years. In 1987, he joined the University of Florida as professor, becoming Distinguished Professor in 2001. At the University of Florida, he initiated the Agroforestry Program. In 2001, he was named a Distinguished Professor. From 1994 to 2005, Nair was the Editor-in-Chief of Agroforestry Systems. He has also served as the Chief Editor of the Agroecology and Land Use section of the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science as well as on the Editorial Boards of several journals. He created the book series, Advances in Agroforestry in 2004 and has served as its editor for 13 years. Nair initiated the World Agroforestry Congress series and organized the first one in Florida in 2004. A plenary session at the fourth Congress (2019), in Montpellier, France, was dedicated to him, acknowledging his contributions to the field.
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