The 1967 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding

Farmers the world over have much in common that knows no national boundaries. Everywhere they work hard, coaxing the soil to produce, watching the weather and battling a host of enemies from weeds to blight and insects. While officials and technicians meet often in scientific and other gatherings, farmers rarely have the opportunity to trade foreign insight; although their tilling of the land is "first among the arts" it is essentially non-verbal. Dr. NASU recognized this need and acted effectively.

His mother's love of nature and Tolstoy's philosophy emphasizing equality of man shaped NASU's early values. Professor Inazo Nitobe's commitment to internationalism and better agriculture led his student, born into a Samurai family, to make these his life concerns. Graduated with honors in agriculture from Tokyo Imperial University, in 1914 he joined its faculty. But academic pursuits did not blunt his concern for the feudal inequalities that then stifled Japanese peasantry.

Surveying the plight of islanders in the Marshalls, Carolines and Marianas, NASU recommended policies that helped improve their lot. In the 1920's, as advisor to the Japanese labor delegation to the League of Nations, he championed the right of tenant farmers to organize. Recognizing early the population and social problems on the land and the need for fair prices for farm products, he became a pioneer in these fields at home and abroad.

After Japan's defeat in 1945, NASU's wartime role in establishing a School of Agriculture at Peking University, guiding emigrant settlement in Manchuria and advising the Nanking puppet administration led to his exclusion from government for five years. As a private citizen observing the land reform being engineered by the Allied Occupation, he became concerned that farmers using antiquated methods might still fail to improve their living.

Kokusai Noyukai, or the Association for International Collaboration of Farmers, was the solution NASU devised. An agreement signed in 1951 with the Governor of California set the pattern. At first 30 to 40 young men went annually to California to work for one year with host farmers, learning latest methods for raising rice, fruit, vegetables, flowers, poultry and dairy animals. Others later were sent to Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, West Germany, Canada, Brazil and New Zealand to learn by working and to build enduring ties of friendship. By now some 1,600 trainees have returned to apply their new knowledge of farming, marketing of produce and building cooperatives. On the average, they have almost doubled their family income at home while leading in community betterment. They and their former hosts in Europe and America exchange seeds, fruit trees and even breeding animals. Recently, returned trainees themselves became hosts to a first contingent of young farmers from Korea, Taiwan and Brazil.

When Dr. NASU was appointed Ambassador to India in 1959, he thought again of sharing knowledge. Young Japanese who have established demonstration farms in eight India states include nine trained abroad; the remainder are drawn from the two agricultural training centers for middle and high school graduates established by NASU in 1929 and 1938. In Pakistan, and elsewhere in Asia and Africa, other teams are following this example. Near Agra, Dr. NASU similarly involved his country's medical profession in creating the India Center of the Japan Leprosy Mission for Asia. At the inauguration he said this effort represented an expression of gratitude for early English and French missionaries who had labored to eradicate leprosy in Japan.

Now 79 years old, Dr. NASU has lived true to his youthful vow: rather than seek personal gain he would devote himself to larger goals benefiting farmers, particularly the least fortunate.

By this election the Board of Trustees recognizes SHIROSHI NASU's practical humanitarianism, enhancing cooperation in agriculture by learning through multinational experience.