The Borlaug Blog

Interning at the World Food Prize Foundation this summer has reinforced my belief in the power and potential of Iowa. I now recognize that agriculture changes lives, small Midwestern states can have an international perspective, and Iowans can impact lives around the world.

While growing up in Iowa, I saw my home state as confining, boring and removed from the international community. However, when I moved to Washington, D.C., last year to attend college, I experienced an unexpected surge in state pride. Never before had I defended butter sculptures or waxed poetic about cornfields. I proudly sported a t-shirt with a picture of Iowa labeled “It’s not Ohio” to help the East Coast kids who struggle with Midwestern geography.

Prior to this year, I equated farming’s rural setting to its relative unimportance. However, farms produce the food that fuels our world, invisibly impacting everyone. In one of my classes this spring, a professor mentioned the changing demographics of agriculture and asked everyone with a family member who farmed to raise their hand. I was one of five — in a class of 250 people. Perhaps the lack of personal connections to farming renders its importance less visible, but agricultural innovation does shape the world. For example, 2016 World Food Prize Laureates Drs. Maria Andrade, Robert Mwanga, Jan Low and Howarth Bouis transformed agriculture with their micronutrient and vitamin biofortification techniques. Their work may not initially seem exciting, but the biofortified sweet potato has improved the health and well-being of millions.

Despite its position in “fly-over” territory, Iowa maintains an international perspective. One of my favorite stories I learned this summer concerns a painting in the Hall of Laureates Iowa Gallery: Iowa Hog Lift by Richard Kelley. The painting depicts real events in 1959, when Iowa assisted Japan to rebuild after two typhoons by delivering 36 pigs to the Japanese state of Yamanashi. As a result, Iowa and Yamanashi remain Sister States. Likewise, former Iowa Governor Robert D. Ray led efforts to resettle and support refugees fleeing conflict in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Today, the World Food Prize continues to interact with an international audience by gathering global leaders to discuss food security at the Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines each October. These examples contrast with my former view of Iowa as a provincial state.

To outsiders, “Iowan” may not evoke images of cosmopolitan humanitarians, but we can claim a legacy of quiet heroes. Dr. Borlaug developed more productive and pest-resistant strains of wheat, saving millions of people from starvation and sparking the Green Revolution. Amb. Quinn — who graciously agreed to discuss his career with me this summer — reported on the Cambodian genocide despite disbelief among U.S. government officials, acted as President Gerald Ford’s interpreter, worked on Henry Kissinger’s National Security Council staff and now serves as World Food Prize president. A younger generation of Iowans continue in this tradition, like 2013 Wallace-Carver fellow Maria Rose Belding, who runs a food pantry communication system that has garnered national attention. Learning about and working alongside influencers like these has strengthened my belief in Iowa’s potential.

No matter how ignored or agrarian, I believe Iowa affects a broad swath of the world.  Interning at the World Food Prize solidified my altered attitude. I am honored to have worked with a foundation which seeks to highlight the achievements of those in agriculture and other hunger-fighting fields.

To all who dismiss farming, consider its significance to worldwide development efforts. To all cynical young Iowans itching to run away to solve important problems, know that you can change the world right here. To all East Coasters who underestimate the Midwest, remember how agriculture transforms lives — but I’ll forgive you if you still mix up Iowa and Ohio.