World Food Prize Foundation

26 days to go until ! 🌍🎉

Today, we hear from Canisius Kanangire, Executive Director of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), who celebrates the power of technology as "the key lever for transformation" of Africa's agri-food systems—from improved seed and digital tools to mechanization!

With AATF’s work having impacted more than 85 million people across the agri-food system over the past two decades, take a moment to read more of his thoughts on how to support this transformation: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-world-food-prize-foundation/posts/?feedView=articles

The World Food Prize Foundation is proud to announce today that Ken DeYoung will receive the 2026 Robert D. Ray Iowa SHARES Humanitarian Award in recognition of his extraordinary leadership in confronting hunger and alleviating human suffering in communities across Guatemala, Haiti, India, Kenya, Liberia, Peru and beyond! 🌍🛩️

Ken will be formally recognized during the 2026 Iowa Hunger Summit in Des Moines on July 22, 2026, where he will join a distinguished group of past recipients whose work has strengthened communities and improved lives both in Iowa and around the world! 🧡

Read more about Ken and the Iowa Hunger Summit here: https://bit.ly/4fpe1EU

GoServ Global

"For many years, discussions about African agriculture focused primarily on increasing yields at the farm level... But Africa’s next transformation will depend equally on everything that surrounds production: storage, transport, logistics, processing, energy, finance, markets, trade, governance, research systems and implementation capacity."

As we count down to , Dr. Steven Were Omamo of IFPRI shares his belief in the coming emergence of a more modern, resilient, industrializing and confident African agri-food economy.

Want to hear more? Read his full blog here: https://bit.ly/4nNkXxS

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

🍎Join advocates, community leaders and changemakers at the Iowa Hunger Summit.

This year's theme, "Linking Arms, Feeding Communities," highlights the partnership and shared responsibility that strengthens food and nutrition security.

Hosted by the World Food Prize Foundation, the summit will feature conversations, panels and collaborative discussion.

📅 Wednesday, July 22, 2026
📍 Norman E. Borlaug Hall of Laureates

Register at: http://www.iowahungersummit.org/IHSRegister |

🌾

🚨 EPISODE 9️⃣ of the World Food Prize Podcast is AVAILABLE NOW! 🎙️

In this episode of the World Food Prize Podcast, Dialogue That Feeds the World, Tom Vilsack speaks with Janti Soeripto, President and CEO of Save the Children US, about closing food security gaps in rural America and globally. Janti discusses community-led solutions that use local data and partnerships to identify and address food gaps, as well as child hunger advocacy in the U.S. through the Save the Children Action Network and policy efforts.

Special thanks to The Wellmark Foundation (Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield) for supporting this podcast!

🔗 Listen today: www.worldfoodprize.org/podcast
🎧 New episodes twice a month

"Over 70% of livestock producers in Africa are smallholders navigating systemic constraints" says Dr. Akpem Terese Shadrach, founder of Vet Konect and 2024 World Food Prize Foundation Top Agri-food Pioneer.

Read how his work is helping women poultry producers overcome these challenges from providing chicks and feed to vaccines, medications and hands-on training:
https://bit.ly/4nNkXxS

"There is a Yoruba song my grandfather used to sing. It speaks of the maize grain (Erire ni T' Agbado) that leaves the village as a seed and returns as a full ear with shiny hair (corn silk). As a child growing up in Benin, I did not know that this image would define my scientific career." 🌽

With only 29 days until our , this story by Sylvanus Odjo, a 2024 Top Agri-Food Pioneer, helps anchor the importance of maize for Africans. His maize research work is a responses to his grandfather's song—which was a prayer for good fortune—but he says that "In the world I am working toward, that good fortune is not left to chance; it is built into the system."

Read his full blog here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-world-food-prize-foundation/posts/?feedView=articles

Tomorrow is the last day to nominate an outstanding candidate for the Borlaug Field Award! 📣

Do you know someone under 40 addressing hunger and malnutrition or advancing agricultural
innovation?

Nominate a candidate and learn more today:
www.worldfoodprize.org/bfa26

Amath Pathé Sene, Managing Director, Africa Food Systems Forum reminds us that African agriculture is about more than just food production but also about:

🧑🏿‍🌾 Jobs
💪🏿 Resilience
🤝🏾 Trade
🌡️ Climate adaptation
🌍 Economic transformation

Want to hear more? Read his full blog here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-world-food-prize-foundation

🚨 ONE MONTH TO GO! 📅 We look forward to hosting DialogueNEXT on June 30th in Nairobi, Kenya! 🎉

Today is also celebrated by the UN as the International Day of Potato 🥔🍠 so let's hear from Kenya's Dr. Joyce Maru, Regional Director for Africa at the International Potato Center (CIP)!

She celebrates root and tuber crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and yams as being "at the center of Africa's future food sovereignty." However, Dr. Maru argues that historic underinvestment now "demands coordinated investment in science, technology, seed systems, infrastructure and markets."

Read the full blog on our LinkedIn page here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-world-food-prize-foundation/

International Potato Center