Prabhu Pingali

Dr. Prabhu Pingali is the founding director of the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) and a professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, with an appointment in the Department of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Prior to joining Cornell in June 2013, he served as the deputy director of the Agriculture Development Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2008 to May 2013.

Dr. Pingali's research focuses on agricultural transformation, food systems, and nutrition transition, with particular emphasis on India's agricultural policies, food security programs, and social safety nets. His work examines how food systems can be transformed to address malnutrition while promoting sustainable agricultural practices. He has led groundbreaking research on the 'true cost' of India's Public Distribution System (PDS), revealing hidden environmental and economic costs and proposing reforms to make the system more sustainable and nutrition-sensitive. His research demonstrates that replacing rice with millets in the PDS could reduce the program's true cost by billions of dollars annually while providing more nutritious food options for beneficiaries.

• U.S. National Academy of Sciences Foreign Fellow (2007)
• Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association (2006)
• Fellow of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (2009)
• President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (2003-2006)

As director of TCI, Dr. Pingali leads a research team working on transforming India's food systems through evidence-based policy recommendations. The institute has produced influential publications including 'Transforming Food Systems for a Rising India' (downloaded over 208,000 times) and 'The Future of India's Social Safety Nets.' Dr. Pingali's research has secured funding from organizations including The Rockefeller Foundation to support the 'True Cost of Food Subsidies in India' project, which provides policymakers with comprehensive analyses of food subsidy programs. He oversees the TCI research team and collaborates with institutions such as the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), positioning TCI as a key contributor to policy discussions on food security and nutrition in India.