Those combines lumbering through amber fields every year about this time make for a nice pastoral image of Iowa, touting its traditional role as one of the world’s most important breadbaskets. Certainly that is true. Iowa is known for its agricultural products, including not only the thousands of acres of corn and soybeans the combines are chewing through, but also pork and beef.

Look a little deeper, though, and it becomes more apparent that Iowa’s role as a food supplier is punctuated by more than the bounty of the harvest. Figuratively, our harvest also includes ingenious thinkers. The names of four Iowans have become synonymous with global hunger-relief efforts. Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug was born in Iowa. His agricultural achievements are credited with saving more than a million people gripped by famine and starvation. Former President Herbert Hoover led relief efforts that fed more than 1 billion Europeans after World War I and World War II. Henry A. Wallace developed hybrid seeds at what later became world renowned Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. Iowa State University graduate George Washington Carver’s peanut research helped farmers in the South switch from single-crop farming to diversification.

Iowa also is a leader in talking about important food policy issues. At no time is this more apparent than during October, when experts convene in Des Moines to discuss important issues related to food production at the World Food Prize Symposium Oct. 12-14. At this year’s symposium, participants will address opposite sides of the same coin, malnutrition in Third World countries and obesity in the most developed. A highlight of the symposium is the awarding to the World Food Prize on Oct. 13. This year’s laureate, Modadugu Gupta, developed lifesaving freshwater aquaculture techniques that have provided fish for millions of people throughout Asia and Africa. New to the celebration this year is the World Food Festival, a celebration of the rich ethnic cuisines of increasingly diverse Iowa, to be held Oct. 13-15 in the East Village.

The World Food Prize Foundation, the official sponsor of these crucial food policy discussions, is often overlooked as one of Iowa’s most important institutions. Though its laureates hail from around the globe and the Food Prize itself is regarded as the foremost international recognition for improving the world’s food supply, the foundation is distinctly Iowa, celebrating not only what Iowans have contributed in the past, but what they will continue to contribute into the future.