Today is former Governor Terry Branstad’s last day as president of the World Food Prize.

“I intend to still be involved as a volunteer and I want to do what I can to help,” Branstad said during a recent Radio Iowa interview.

Branstad said one of his accomplishments has been reconnecting the World Food Prize with the work of Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, the agricultural scientist who founded the World Food Prize in 1986.

“We’ve taken the staff and many other people up to see the Borlaug farm where he grew up in Howard County,” Branstad said, “and we were in Mexico this year, next year we’re going in India and the year after to Africa, tracing where Borlaug did a lot of his research.”

Branstad, who turned 78 this past November, grew up on a farm near Leland. He served nearly 22 and a half years as governor — the longest tenure ever for an American governor. He was the nation’s oldest governor in 2017 when he left office to become U.S. Ambassador to China. When he was first elected governor, though, Branstad was just 36 years old and the nation’s youngest governor.

“It was a difficult year, 1982,” Branstad said. “Interest rates nationwide were over 10%. They were 8.3% in Iowa. We were at the onset of the Farm Crisis and it was a very challenging time. I was running against a very capable opponent: Roxanne Conlin.”

Branstad left office in 1999 after four terms as governor and became president of Des Moines University in 2003. “The challenge was I was not an academic and I was not a doctor, so I was immediately suspect from the faculty,” Branstad said, “but I won them over.”

Branstad credits an “open door” policy in his DMU office and eating lunch in the school’s cafeteria to talk with faculty and students. When he returned to the governor’s office in 2011, Branstad periodically ate in the statehouse cafeteria.

Branstad has basic advice for people who want to enter politics. “First of all, you want to treat everyone with respect and dignity, so you want to treat people well,” Branstad said. “You also want to build (friendships.) I found internationally that is very important.”

Branstad was U.S. Ambassador to China from mid-2017 to the fall of 2020. “It was a great experience and the Chinese people are nice people,” Branstad said. “Even though we have really big differences with their political system, we also have great respect for their work ethic, their commitment to education, and their friendliness and hospitality.”

Branstad said the contacts he made as a U.S. ambassador were an asset in his work at the World Food Prize.

Share this:
Radio Iowa