JOHNSTON, IOWA (September 26, 2019) — Iowa Public Television will provide live coverage of The World Food Prize Laureate Award Ceremony at the Iowa Capitol on Thursday, October 17, at 7PM. The ceremony will be broadcast on statewide Iowa Public Television and will be livestreaming at Iptv.org and on YouTube. The broadcast will repeat Sunday, October 20, at 1PM.
The 2019 prize will be awarded to Simon N Groot of the Netherlands for his transformative role in empowering millions of smallholder farmers to earn greater incomes through enhanced vegetable production, benefitting hundreds of millions of consumers with greater access to nutritious vegetables for healthy diets. As founder and leader of East-West Seed, his initiative over the past four decades has developed a dynamic, smallholder-centric tropical-vegetable-seed industry, starting in Southeast Asia and spreading through Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
"Like Dr Norman Borlaug before him, Simon N Groot has dedicated his life to improving the livelihoods of millions around the world," said Ambassador Kenneth M Quinn. "As the use of his seeds spread throughout the Philippines and to Thailand, Indonesia, and across Southeast Asia, farmers' daily lives were uplifted and consumers benefited from greater access to nutritious vegetables. Mr Groot, in effect, developed a stunningly-impactful global-network of seed-producers who are transforming the lives of 20 million farmers in over 60 countries every year."
The World Food Prize was founded by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Iowan Norman Borlaug. After winning the Nobel Prize in 1970 for his achievements in agricultural research, Borlaug envisioned a separate international award to recognize those who have made significant contributions to advancements in the quality, quantity, and availability of food in the world.
Programming support for the 2019 World Food Prize is provided by the WT and Edna M Dahl Trust.
Learn more at Iptv.org.
For more information about Iowa Public Television, please contact Susan Ramsey at 515.725.9703 or Susan.Ramsey@iptv.org.
Iowa Public Television is Iowa's only statewide television network. IPTV's mission to educate, inform, enrich and inspire Iowans guides its quality, noncommercial programming that tells Iowa's stories like no one else can. Four statewide, public channels offer programs of lasting value to Iowans, regardless of where they live or what they can afford: IPTV (.1), IPTV KIDS (.2), IPTV WORLD (.3) and IPTV Create (.4) on Channel 11, Des Moines; Channel 12, Iowa City; Channel 21, Fort Dodge; Channel 24, Mason City; Channel 27, Sioux City; Channel 32, Waterloo; Channel 32, Council Bluffs; Channel 36, Davenport; and Channel 36, Red Oak. More information can be found at Iptv.org.
