Recently, the Obama administration announced an initiative that went relatively unnoticed amid the coverage of Afghanistan, health-care reform and the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet, the groundbreaking effort has the potential to fundamentally transform a field of science to improve human health and protect our environment, while greatly improving the foundation for global food security.

I'm talking about the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), which Congress established in the 2008 Farm Bill. Launched recently by Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack, he saw the promise of NIFA as rebuilding USDA's competitive grants program from the ground up to generate real results for the American people. It's a bold move. And, it's about time.

 

I had the opportunity to hear Bill Gates deliver remarks last week at the World Food Prize Symposium. He spoke about the importance of agricultural innovations to feed the world, particularly in Africa, and outlined his vision for the next green revolution. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post on Friday, Michael Gerson further described Gates' optimistic and results-driven approach to meet farmers needs and fill a growing gap through a partnership of sound science and philanthropy.

Yesterday I attended the World Food Prize 2009 Borlaug Dialogue Symposium in Des Moines, Iowa. Agricultural leaders, including Ellen Kullman, CEO of Dupont, and Patricia Woertz, CEO of ADM, opened the event encouraging stakeholders to work collectively to achieve Norman Borlaug's vision to develop and share meaningful agricultural innovations with farmers around the world. They praised the World Food Prize and urged participants to come together to meet the agricultural needs of a growing world.

 

The Farm Foundation announced yesterday the winners of its 30-Year Challenge Policy Competition. The competition challenged participants to submit entries focusing on innovative ways to meet the agriculture and food system challenges outlined in the Foundation's 2008 report. The top entry in the competition was written by chief economist of Informa Economics, William Motes. In his paper, Dr. Motes addressed global agricultural resource allocation policies over the past three decades and outlined critical principles in which he feels policy development must focus.