Source: NCSU COLLEGE OF AG & LIFE SCIENCES, 6/8/22


When Vasu Kuraparthy, a professor in cotton and genetics at NC State, was young, his family grew a wide variety of crops on their farm in Southern India, including rice, peanuts, sugar cane, millets, pigeon peas, field beans and vegetables. Although his family had a successful small farming business, he also saw his family fight many hardships and witnessed pervasive food insecurity and malnutrition in the region.

“My motivation to do agriculture research stems from seeing firsthand how the pests, diseases, drought and heat stress impacted our farms and the livelihoods of rural communities,” says Kuraparthy.

Through exposure to farming, Kuraparthy developed a keen interest in agricultural research and discovered a fascination with plant biology. Now, he’s using his passion for studying plant genetics and breeding in hopes of assuring the stability of one of North Carolina’s most important crops: cotton.

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