Officials with the Iowa-based World Food Prize are holding a rally at the state capitol today. The group, which makes a 250-thousand dollar award each year, is dedicated to two things — addressing an adequate global food supply and to educate the youth about the hunger situation. Dr. Kenneth Quinn is executive director of the World Food Prize Foundation and he’s now recruiting students for the next symposium in October.Dr. Quinn, a former U-S Ambassador to Cambodia, says 35 Iowa students from 35 high schools came to last year’s Food Prize Youth Institute and he’d like to eventually see one student from every high school in Iowa attend. He says it’s easy to take part.A handful of the students who take part in the three-day summit in Des Moines will have the chance to study food issues in a foreign country. He says last year’s conference was the largest yet and resulted in students being sent to India, Kenya, Mexico and the Philippines.Among today’s announcements, former President George Bush has joined the Foundation’s list of advisors. The Food Prize is considered the “Nobel” prize for food, awarded to one person a year who has advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. For more information, surf to: www.wfpf.org
