World Food Prize celebrating 40th year with statewide campaign through Iowa
CEO of the World Food Prize Tom Vilsack poses for a photo at the Brewed Book in Davenport May 1, 2026. Vilsack is touring the state to promote the World Food Prize in its 40th year.
The World Food Prize is celebrating its 40th year with a campaign to elevate the organization's profile across Iowa.
The CEO of the World Food Prize, Tom Vilsack, visited Davenport last Friday to talk with city and school officials and reporters about the organization's work.Â
The World Food Prize was started in 1986 by an Iowan, Norman Borlaug. He developed wheat varieties that were more disease-resistant, more productive and easier to grow in different conditions, which led to a transformation in agricultural practices and helped prevent famine around the world.
Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work. Borlaug wanted to create a prize specifically for outstanding contributions to agriculture and food production, leading to him founding the World Food Prize in 1986.Â
Each year, a selection committee made up of past laureates and food and agriculture scientists takes nominations and makes recommendations to the World Food Prize Board of Directors.Â
In its 40th year, the organization recently announced Huub Lelieveld as the 57th laureate to receive the World Food Prize.
Lelieveld, from the Netherlands, will receive the $500,000 prize for his contributions to preventing foodborne illness and reducing food loss and waste in humanitarian aid.
During a famine in southern Africa in the early 2000s, food aid was tied up in ports because of bureaucratic hurdles and regulatory barriers while people starved. After a 40-year career in food safety, Lelieveld founded a nonprofit called the Global Harmonization Initiative to build international consensus around science-based food regulations and legislation so countries could be confident in the safety of the food being distributed across borders.
Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, wants more Iowans to know about the World Food Prize and be proud of it.
"Part of the reason why I was asked to take this job was to deepen Iowans' understanding, and the folks in the Midwest's understanding, of the significance of the World Food Prize," Vilsack said. "I think there's a tendency to think that this activity and this Foundation's work is either located in central Iowa and/or is discussing hunger issues far, far away."
But it's not, Vilsack said, citing a recent Feeding America report that found widespread food-insecurity in America.
"Hunger is in every county," Vilsack said. "It's in Scott County. It's in every one of the 99 counties in Iowa, and it's in every county in the United States, no matter how prosperous."
The World Food Prize, Vilsack said, is dedicated to working toward a world where there are no food-insecure people in the United States and anywhere else in the world.Â
"It's a big task and a big job," Vilsack said.Â
The World Food Prize tries to lift up awareness of the issue with a Hunger Summit, which is on July 22 this year. It brings in experts from across Iowa and the U.S. to Des Moines to discuss best practices to address hunger issues.
It also has a Youth Institute, where it encourages young people in high school to think about food insecurity and suggest solutions with a written paper and presentation. The World Food Prize has Youth Institutes in 23 states and 74 countries, Vilsack said, with 2,500 young people participating. Of that group 175 to 200 come to Des Moines during the laureate award ceremony in October. From those young people, the World Food Prize selects about 15-20 interns who serve in foreign countries with researchers.Â
And then there's the prize. Vilsack said few Iowans are aware that such a prize exists and that it's a unique award. No other similar prize exists around the world for agriculture and food-supply contributions, Vilsack said.Â
"We're it. This is a unique, one-of-a-kind acknowledgment and recognition that happens in the state of Iowa," Vilsack said.Â
To raise awareness of the World Food Prize's uniqueness, Vilsack has been traveling to a different county every month and highlighting something or someone that is unique or interesting from that part of the state.Â
In Davenport, it's Bix Beiderbecke, a renowned jazz musician from the early 1900s, who has a festival and race named after him.Â
This is one of about a dozen locations the World Food Prize highlighted in videos that aim to promote unique features of Iowa, like the World Food Prize.Â
They started in February with Ames and George Washington Carver and his connection with Iowa State University. Then, in Beacon, Iowa, they highlighted John Ruan, who started a successful trucking company and endowed the World Food Prize. Vilsack also traveled to Mount Ayr, where astronaut Peggy Whitson graduated from high school.
Vilsack said he hopes the videos spark conversations about Iowa and a sense of pride.Â
"No one's doing any more important work than we're doing right here," Vilsack said. "We're feeding the world."
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