Background
However, his mother convinced him he could do more working in agriculture.
However, his mother convinced him he could do more working in agriculture.
With assistance from the Oklahoma State University, he attended an agricultural and technical secondary school in Ethiopia, and also studied at what is now Haramaya University.
During primary school, Ejeta planned to study engineering when he reached college age. The university and the United States. Agency for International Development helped him earn a doctorate from Purdue University. Working in Sudan during the early 1980s, Ejeta developed Africa"s first commercial hybrid variety of sorghum tolerant to drought.
Later, with a Purdue University colleague in Indiana, he discovered the chemical basis of the relationship between the deadly parasitic weed striga and sorghum, and was able to produce sorghum varieties resistant to both drought and striga.
On 2011 President Barack Obama appointed Gebisa Ejeta as Member, Board for International Food and Agricultural Development.