Chandler, Robert F (1907–1999)

US agronomist. He established the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. From 1959–72 he developed varieties of tropical rice that more than doubled traditional yields and averted a famine predicted for Asia in the 1970s. Back in the USA, he wrote a history of the Rice Institute, and served as an international consultant on rural agricultural development.

He was born in Columbus, Ohio. He was state horticulturalist to the Maine Department of Agriculture 1929–31, until returning to his alma mater, the University of Maine, for his doctorate in 1934. He taught at Cornell University 1935–47, and then the University of New Hampshire 1947–54, where he also directed the Agricultural Experiment Station and headed the College of Agriculture. He was appointed president of the University of New Hampshire in 1950. He was at the Rockefeller Foundation 1954–75, and was its first director of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center in Taiwan 1972–75.