The World Food Prize Laureate Announcement Ceremony awarded the 2010 Laureates, David Beckmann and Jo Luck, at the U.S. State Department this Wednesday. Beckmann and Luck are both known for their outstanding work and service to Bread for the World and Heifer International, two premiere philanthropic organizations fighting world-wide poverty and hunger.

David Beckmann's dedication to Bread for the World and World Bank has changed the lives of people across the world, through grassroots efforts to support government policies and programs aiding millions of impoverished and hungry people across the world.
 
As CEO of Heifer, Jo Luck has created an organization that educates the world's poorest nations and communities to create opportunities for themselves, while constantly advocating on their behalf to increase policies and legislation on local and global schemes.
 
Each year the WFP recognizes individuals who have made exceptional contributions to any field of food supply, which improves the quality, quantity or availability of food throughout the world. The 2009 WFP Laureate award recipient was Dr. Gebisa Estos, of Ethiopia.
 
The Global Harvest Initiative is looking forward to going to the World Food Prize in October, where we will have the opportunity to meet with David Beckmann and Jo Luck, the 2010 WFP Laureates. While at the WFP, GHI will unveil the first ever Global Agricultural Productivity Report, GAP Report, during a featured side event. The GAP Report is being developed in partnership with the Farm Foundation and the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and it will provide global and regional measures of productivity growth, and establish a process to maintain and report the measurements on a continuing basis. GHI is committed to creating and maintaining the GAP Report by annually publishing updated measures, along with evaluations of progress and suggestions for progress and suggestions for ways globally to close the productivity gap in order to meet the challenge of doubling agriculture production in the next 40 years and do it in a sustainable way.