[Dialogue] MS Swaminathan

[Nancy Trask]

Those of you who worked on the International Exposition of Rural Development will get a kick out of this.  Here I am in Winterset, Iowa, where we are getting ready for the 37th annual Covered Bridge Festival.  We usually get an attendance of around 25,000 people for the festival, which is a lot for small town of under 5000.  I had decided that the Public Library would feature the World Food Prize at our festival tent.  The World Food Prize is a bit like the Nobel Prize, but concentrates on the field of food security.  M.S. Swaminathan was the first winner of the prize 20 years ago.  We were trying to get the founder of the prize, Norman Borlaug, or the executive director, Ambassador Quinn, to be our honored guest at the festival.  But our meeting with Ambassador Quinn today resulted in a suggestion that we try to get Dr. Swaminathan!  One of my daughter's friends is spending this summer at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, and one of my son's friends spent the summer there 3 years ago, both with the youth internship program of the World Food Prize.  What a kick it will be if we manage to host Dr. Swaminathan here in October!  I know he is very friendly & loves to talk to people, so I think he would have a good time.  We are a farming community full of down-to-earth folks.

Just thought I would share the glee of possibility with you all.  I'll let you know the results of our quest to feature the World Food Prize in this way.

For any of you who may be history buffs, Winterset is linked to Dr. Swaminathan in the sense that Gandhi was an inspiration to Dr. S. and Gandhi in turn had turned to George Washington Carver for advice about his diet, when he was gearing up for leading the move to independence of the largest democracy in the world.  Stepping back a bit further in history, George Washington Carver's first stop after being turned away from a college in Kansas was Winterset!!!  Several people in Winterset, especially a Mrs. Milholland, tirelessly encouraged Carver to go to college at Simpson in Indianola, IA, which he did after spending 2 years here operating a small laundry.  Other interesting links in the chain -- After Simpson College, Carver became the first black student at Iowa State University, where he had a professor Henry C. Wallace.  He became friends with the Wallace family, including the 6-year-old son Henry Agard Wallace.  Carver particularly befriended the boy, & taught him the wonders of plants.  Henry A. Wallace went on to become Secretary of Agriculture & then Vice President of the US in the FDR administration.  While Secretary of Agriculture, he observed agricultural research stations & set up such a station in Mexico.  One of the research scientists hired there was Norman Borlaug, who had worked on hybrid seed-corn since his childhood.  His work with hybrid seeds resulted in drastic increases in world wheat & corn production, and he was recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.  With his prize money, he established the World Food Prize which is headquartered in Des Moines, IA.  What a world!  

Yours,
Nancy Trask
in the heart of Iowa

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