Even “minor” crops can have a big impact worldwide. Peppers, for example.
On Aug. 12, the World Food Prize Foundation announced it had selected Derek Barchenger, senior scientist and head of the Global Pepper Breeding Program at the World Vegetable Center for the 2025 Norman E. Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, Endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation. It selected Barchenger for “his innovative leadership in the advancement of pepper breeding” and the worldwide impact of his work, the foundation says in a news release.
“Receiving the Borlaug Field Award is an incredible honor, and it affirms the power of science when it’s rooted in the field,” says Barchenger, adding that it is “kind of surreal to receive such an incredible award.”
“It really means a lot because I work in what some might call a minor crop — peppers,” he continues. “To get this type of recognition and publicity really means something.”
Why peppers?
Barchenger says he originally became interested in peppers because they were more than just a crop with economic and nutritional value. They hold cultural value, too.
“Peppers have incredible cultural significance here in the United States and throughout Latin America, but also in Asia and Africa. So, that’s kind of what attracted me most to peppers at first; how important they are to societies and cultures all around the world,” he says.
But peppers are also important nutritionally, as well as offering growers, especially small growers, economic flexibility they might not have with other crops.
“Peppers provide small farmers options,” he says. “They have multiple marketing channels, and they have storage options to allow for more income.”
Most of Barchenger’s research today focuses on Asia and Africa. He explains a lot of his and his team’s work has been on exploring and identifying sources of resistance to viral diseases, resistance to the pests that spread those diseases, and management strategies.
“The way we find resistance is through field screening. We may do a greenhouse trial to find or to source the resistance, but it has to be validated in real field conditions,” he says of the work. “It’s a nice mix of lab and field and greenhouse-based work. I’m really, really lucky — it’s absolutely my dream job.”
Pressing pepper problems
Barchenger and his teams in India and West Africa work closely with local seed companies and growers directly to identify problems and field test potential solutions to best serve grower demands on the ground.
“Farmers really need access to improved varieties because the challenges that we face in peppers are really, really significant,” Barchenger says. He explains most of the world’s peppers are grown in tropical environments, which present two main challenges: viral diseases and heat.
Two of the biggest viral challenges to peppers in India — the largest exporter of dried red chili — has been chili leaf curl virus, transmitted by white flies, and Southeast Asian thrips, also called black thrips. Both of these pepper problems have hit the area recently, with chili leaf curl virus arriving about a decade ago, and the thrips having arrived three to four years ago. Both are causing huge losses to India’s pepper growers today.
“The second big issue is heat stress,” Barchenger says. “You might think, and you would be right, that among vegetable crops, peppers are typically among the most heat tolerant crops you can grow. But, in many parts of Asia and Africa where they are grown, the tolerance isn’t sufficient.”
He explains temperatures approaching 110°F are common.
“You can still get a crop, but the productivity, the quality, the yield is much lower than optimal,” he says. “[Heat]’s something that’s very difficult to control. You can spray to kill pests. You can do management strategies to reduce diseases, but what can you do about heat?
The heat issue is only getting worse with climate change. To address the challenge, Barchenger and his team have been working on breeding to increase heat tolerance in peppers.
“It’s really important that we try to tackle these issues to ensure that people around the world have access to safe, healthy chili powder and peppers, but also that farmers are able to be profitable and produce high-quality crops without too many inputs.”
Praise for Barchenger’s pepper work
World Food Prize leadership has nothing but praise for Barchenger’s work at World Veg.
“Derek Barchenger embodies the enduring spirit of Dr. Norman Borlaug — using science in service of humanity,” says Thomas Vilsack, CEO of the foundation in a news release. “Through his groundbreaking work in pepper breeding, he has uplifted the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers and brought resilience to a vegetable that nourishes both people and cultures. His leadership reminds us that innovation in the field can be a powerful force for global food and nutrition security. We are proud to honor him with the 2025 Borlaug Field Award.”
Mashal Husain, the foundations president, similarly praises Barchenger’s work for empowering smallholder farmers and strengthening food systems by focusing on “a crop that sustains cultures and economies alike.”
“Derek Barchenger’s journey, from an Oklahoma farm to leading global innovations in pepper breeding, is a testament to what’s possible when passion meets purpose,” Husain adds. “In honoring Derek with the Borlaug Field Award, we celebrate not just a scientist, but a changemaker whose impact will be felt for generations.”
The World Food Prize Foundation will present the award to Barchenger at the 2025 Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 21-23, where he will be speaking. Registration for the event is currently open.
