Every year, food security advocates from across the world gather in Des Moines, Iowa for a one-of-a-kind celebration. And once again, Grow Further was there for the occasion.
Considered the premier food security conference of the year, the 2024 Borlaug Dialogue took place October 28-31. It was a packed agenda as usual.
Geoffrey Hawtin and Cary Fowler, winners of the 2024 World Food Prize, were present to deliver the Borlaug Lecture at Iowa State University and to formally accept their prize. They were honored for their work toward creating the famous global seed vault in Svalbard, Norway.
Many other sessions featured top officials in agriculture and food security, including Qu Dongyu, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Heads of state from Tanzania and Sierra Leone also attended, as did top officials from the US Agency for International Development. World Food Prize Foundation President Terry Branstad, who once served as the US ambassador to China, kicked things off with welcoming remarks.
Grow Further plants the flag in Des Moines
We were there to announce our two newest grants and to network while enjoying the educational sessions and panel discussions. Five Grow Further team members flew to Des Moines to attend the conference, where we announced our first grants last year.
Grow Further founder and CEO Peter Kelly said he was pleased that we were better prepared than last year (no last-minute scrambling for brochures and other promotional materials). But we had plenty of new content to share. “We squeezed four projects onto two posters,” Peter said, “condensing what had been two projects on two posters last year to accommodate our doubled grant portfolio.” We also created a student brochure, mindful that the future generation of food security champions was well represented there.
Unfortunately, no one from Grow Further’s team had time to dress up for Halloween, “but several staff left early to celebrate Diwali,” Peter added.
We would’ve never been able to attend all the sessions, but we hit some of the best ones.
“One of the sessions I found interesting was on conserving genetic diversity in vegetables,” Peter recalled. “Dr. Cary Fowler asked the audience of experts for estimates of how many of the 1,000 vegetables that are cultivated around the world have any breeding program, and estimates were only 50-100.” We see the potential for Grow Further to fund research and development in support of breeding programs for some of the hundreds of others. Speakers also brought up the lack of an adequate system to preserve the genetic diversity of livestock, something along the lines of the giant seed vault behind the awarding of this year’s World Food Prize. We might be interested in supporting the creation of such a system.
A team effort
Grow Further also took advantage of the occasion to build up our connections as a team. After all, ours is a remote workforce, and the Borlaug Dialogue gives us a unique opportunity for many of us to come together and brainstorm face-to-face.
Peter said everyone had a lot of fun. “We had several team dinners to build community in the remote team,” he said. Grow Further also took group photos outside the World Food Prize Foundation headquarters, a building that once served as the central Des Moines Public Library. And since it’s a US election year, we visited the Hotel Fort Des Moines, which used to host the Iowa Caucuses.
The formal World Food Prize award ceremony took place at the Iowa State Capitol. Peter called it “inspiring, similar to the awarding of a Nobel Prize.” The spectacle featured a parade of dignitaries, trumpets, food, and all the other festive flourishes one might expect from such a ceremony. Peter even found part of it educational and potentially relevant to our future work. “There’s a video clip played about the laureates that’s a little like the clips about the presidential nominee’s life that are played at political conventions,” he said. “We’re going to study how it was done and what might be learned about how to communicate the importance of agriculture.”
All in all, it was a wonderful affair and a great success for Grow Further. It was a hectic week—the Borlaug Dialogue temporarily took over all of downtown Des Moines and the city’s airport. Nevertheless, in the midst of all that commotion, we gained inspiration, discussed our work, announced our latest grants, made long-lasting connections, and further strengthened our team.
We’re already looking forward to next year’s World Food Prize announcement and the 2025 Borlaug Dialogue. After all, there’s no place like Des Moines in late October for those passionate about building a more food-secure future.
— Grow Further
Photo credit: Five of Grow Further’s team members gathered for the 2024 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa. Left to right: Venkat Pegadaraju, Jody Santoro, Rimple Nahata, Jennifer Dine, and CEO Peter Kelly.
