Jo Luck, 2010 World Food Prize Laureate, former President of Heifer International and member of the DuPont Advisory Committee on Agricultural Innovation and Productivity, has dedicated her career to ensuring global food security by advocating for smallholder farmers and empowering women. On October 14, the eve of International Day for Rural Women and the opening of the 2014 Borlaug Dialogue, she penned an opinion piece for the Des Moines Register, Empowering Women to Feed the World. In it she discusses the importance of embracing and nurturing the potential of women smallholder farmers in the challenge of food and nutrition security.
Through access to tools, extension services, land and capital, women can transform the world’s ability to sustainably feed the planet and tackle the full spectrum of malnutrition, which is affecting the lives of so many of our children.
~ Jo Luck
Read the full article here.
![PaulSchickler_WFP]()
Public Private Partnerships Discussed at Borlaug Dialogue
At day two of the 2014 Borlaug Dialogue, DuPont Pioneer President, Paul Schickler participated in a panel discussion, Focus on Africa, Policy and Partnerships.
A dynamic discussion followed brief remarks by Birtukan Dagnachew, a smallholder farmer from Ethiopia. Public-private-partnerships was a consistent theme of the panel.
In his remarks, Schickler emphasized education, partnerships and investment to promote agricultural productivity and development in Africa.
When asked about DuPont Pioneer partnerships and efforts in the region, he highlighted the Advanced Maize Seed Adoption Program (AMSAP), a collaboration with the government of Ethiopia and USAID to advance the agricultural development and food security goals set by the government of Ethiopia; a project with the National 4-H Council to strengthen youth development in rural African communities; and the establishment of a research hub in Delmas, South Africa for advanced seed breeding.
Schickler further emphasized that collaboration with smallholder farmers is crucial to improve agriculture productivity and livelihoods, saying that Pioneer can learn as much from local communities as people can learn from Pioneer in terms in global science and technology.
Joining Schickler on the panel were,
- Moderator: Dr. Lindiwe Sibanda, CEO and Head of Mission, FANRPAN, Moderator
- Birtukan Dagnachew, Smallholder farmer, Ethiopia
- Florence Chenoweth, Minister of Agriculture, Liberia
- Gerardine Mukeshimana, Minister of Agriculture, Rwanda
- Joseph Sam Sesay, Minister of Agriculture, Sierra Leone
The 2014 Borlaug Dialogue is an international symposium that brings together in Des Moines, Iowa, agricultural leaders from around the world. This year, the Dialogue is addressing, The Greatest Challenge in Human History: Can We Sustainably Feed the 9 Billion People on Our Planet by Year 2050? Video recordings from the proceedings will be available on The World Food Prize soon.
