Melaku Worede: Solving Hunger Indigenously

Born in Shewa Province in 1936, Worede pursued his passion for plant science to the United States, earning a PhD in agronomy from the University of Nebraska before returning home to serve his nation. His greatest legacy began in 1979 when he took the helm of Ethiopia’s Plant Genetic Resources Centre in Addis Ababa. Over the next 14 years, he and his entirely Ethiopian staff built what became widely recognized as Africa’s finest genebank and one of the premier genetic conservation systems in the world, amassing over 80,000 accessions of more than 100 crop species.

Yet Worede understood that seeds cannot be preserved solely as static specimens in cold storage. The catastrophic drought and famine of 1984 devastated farmlands and wiped out countless traditional varieties that farmers had cultivated for generations. In response, Worede launched a national seed collection mission to rescue the remaining diversity. More importantly, he developed what he called the Ethiopian approach, a strategy of conservation through use that would influence agricultural policy worldwide. Instead of locking seeds away in vaults, he created Strategic Seed Reserves of traditional varieties that could be released back to farmers during times of crisis. He believed that diversity survives only when it is planted, harvested, and adapted continuously by the people who depend on it.

In 1989, the same year he received the Right Livelihood Award, often called the Alternative Nobel Prize, Worede founded the Seeds of Survival program with support from Canadian partners. This initiative brought together plant breeders, genebank experts, non-governmental organizations, and most importantly, farmers themselves, working side by side in fields across Ethiopia. The results were remarkable. Locally adapted native seeds developed through this participatory approach, grown without commercial fertilizers or chemicals, outperformed high-input modern varieties in yield by a significant margin. Worede consistently challenged the assumption that farmers care only about productivity. He argued that traditional farmers select for cooking quality, growing period, animal fodder, building materials, and medicinal properties, a diverse set of criteria that industrial breeding programs overlook.

His influence extended far beyond Ethiopia’s borders. Worede became the inaugural chair of the African Committee for Plant and Genetic Resources and helped establish the African Biodiversity Network. He served as chair of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Commission on Plant Genetic Resources and trained genebank curators and young scientists from across the globe. The model he pioneered in Ethiopia spread to more than a dozen countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, inspiring community seed banking initiatives that continue to flourish in various forms. For two decades, Worede advocated alongside international colleagues for the formal recognition of farmers’ rights, culminating in the inclusion of these principles in the FAO’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in 2004.

Melaku Worede passed away on July 31, 2023, at the age of 87 after a short illness. His death prompted tributes from across the world, from the scientists he mentored to the farming communities whose knowledge he had honored and elevated. He left behind a transformed understanding of agricultural conservation: one where modern science does not replace traditional wisdom but instead forms a respectful collaboration with it. For Worede, the seed was never merely a biological object. It was a living connection between culture, environment, and survival. And the only rightful guardians of that legacy, he insisted time and again, are the farmers themselves.