The World Food Prize Foundation announced yesterday that Paul and Claudia Schickler of Des Moines will commit $400,000 over the next three years to the foundation.

The money will go to expand the foundation’s Global Youth Institute to every high school in the state beginning in 2012. Each year, students who participate in the program, which was started by John Ruan and Norman Borlaug, research and write an essay on a food security topic.

Starting in 2012, they will then gather at Iowa State University for a daylong event, and the top students from Iowa and several other states will be invited to attend the three-day World Food Prize Global Youth Institute.