DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Growing and distributing food in a volatile world will be the focus of talks this week as agriculture officials from around the globe converge on Des Moines for the World Food Prize symposium.
This year's conference shortly after the death of founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug. Borlaug's work on high-yield, disease-resistant crop strains helped to more than double world food production between 1960 and 1990.
Beginning Wednesday, world leaders will discuss ways to ensure people have access to food, particularly in areas that are poor or already troubled by conflict.
"There is considerable potential for volatility and even violence in the future based on potential food shortages," said Kenneth Quinn, president of the Des Moines-based World Food Prize Foundation.
Efforts to improve the world food supply could be hindered by such things as increasing food prices and climate change that reduces crop production, he said.
In uncertain times, "countries have a tendency to revert back to national sovereignty and perhaps close their borders for the export of food," Quinn said. That can further disrupt the global food supply because many countries depend on food imports, he said.
"We want to pose the question: What are the prospects of this and what do we need to have in place to deal with it?" Quinn asked.
Dr. Gebisa Ejeta will be honored as this year's recipient of the $250,000 World Food Prize. The Ethiopian scientist, now a professor at Purdue University, will be recognized for his breakthroughs in the 1980s in developing a drought-resistant sorghum widely used in Africa. He later developed a type of sorghum resistant to a persistent weed.
U.S. Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack and his counterparts from Canada, Egypt and the Netherlands will speak Thursday afternoon. The former president of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, also is scheduled to speak, along with Dupont chief executive Ellen Kullman and Archer Daniels Midland Co. chief executive Patricia Woertz.
The headline speaker Thursday will be Bill Gates, co-chairman of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and co-founder of Microsoft Corp. The Gates Foundation has made agricultural development and fighting world hunger one of its priorities.
Frank Swoboda, the World Food Prize's director of planning, said the diverse group of people attending this year's event shows the importance of global food security and Borlaug's legacy.
The agricultural scientist died Sept. 12 from complications of cancer. He was 95.
"When he won the Nobel Peace Prize and since then he would always tell people, you can't build peace on an empty stomach," Swoboda said. "It was that way of thinking ... that before we can have a stable world, a plentiful world, we have to make sure basic needs are being met and that we have plenty of food."
Borlaug, who grew up in Iowa, established the World Food Prize in 1986 to honor efforts to solve global hunger. There will be tributes to him throughout the week, including a memorial service and screening of a film about Borlaug's life. A new Borlaug Hall of Laureates will be dedicated Wednesday.
Swoboda said Borlaug's legacy is inspiring, but "there's still a great deal of work to be done."
The United Nations estimates there are 1 billion hungry people worldwide.