(Radio Iowa) – Two scientists who played key roles in creating a world seed vault are the winners of the 2024 World Food Prize. World Food Prize Foundation president, Terry Branstad, Thursday, announced Geoffrey Hawtin of Great Britain and Cary Fowler of the United States as the winners.

“They focused their careers on preserving and protecting the world’s heritage of crop diversity and mobilizing this critical resource to defend against threats of global food security,” Branstad says. During the ceremony at the U-S State Department, Branstad says they conserved more than six-thousand varieties of crops and culturally important plants. “Sustaining storehouses of seeds that we need to breed tomorrow’s crops for more nutritious, and climate smart crops,” Branstad says. “They then went on to work to establish the famous Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.”

World Food Prize Foundation President Terry Branstad. (photo from World Food Prize Foundaiton)

The Norway facility is often referred to as the “Doomsday Vault,” and holds one-point-two-five million seed samples in an underground facility in the Arctic Circle. More than anyone else these laureates have together shaped the global system we now have for protecting, sharing, and utilizing crop diversity for the benefit of humanity,” Branstad says.

Hawtin is the founding director and executive board member at the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Fowler is currently the U-S Special Envoy for Global Food Security. The World Food Prize was created by Cresco, Iowa native Norman Borlaug, who received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work that contributed to increases in agricultural outputs which was termed the Green Revolution.

The two will receive the World Food Prize at an event at the Iowa State Capitol building in October.