John Niederhauser

John Strong Niederhauser (September 27, 1916 – August 12, 2005) was an American agricultural scientist. He was awarded the 1990 World Food Prize for his leadership in advancing wider and more effective production of the potato and its resistance to disease.

During his nearly 60 years in international agriculture, he became internationally known as "Mr. Potato” for his contributions as a researcher, educator, leader, and cooperator in potato development programs and for his innovations and achievements in providing food to the world. In part due to his accomplishments, the potato currently ranks fourth in consumption among the world's staple foods, after wheat, rice, and maize.

John Niederhauser was born in Seattle to Charles and Ruth Strong Niederhauser.

During course registration at Cornell University, John met Herbert Hice Whetzel, the founder of the Cornell University Department of Plant Pathology and Whetzel convinced him to become a plant pathologist. in 1943 at Cornell University.

John's career focused on potato and potato diseases. He first gained experience with potato while at Cornell University, where he worked for the New York State Seed Certification Service during the summer while he was in graduate school. John was recruited by George Harrar, a former student of Elvin Stakman, to join the Rockefeller Foundation's Mexican Agricultural Program.

In the 1960s Niederhauser worked at MAP, occupied with the Phytophthora infestans situation in Central Mexico. Assuming that the locals had simply never tried breeding for late blight resistance, he was surprised to find that resistant seed he shipped in from New York State fell to the local P. i. races as easily as the local seed stock did. Niederhauser then spent the next several years investigating and remedying this problem, by breeding in resistance from wild Solanum demissum native to the same area, especially in the Toluca Valley.

Niederhauser's life and career in plant pathology are described in an autobiographical book, Recollections of a Life in Science and Agriculture.

He died in Tucson in 2005.