Gates Foundation

$100,000 NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences. The prize, to recognize "a mid-career scientist at a U.S. institution who has made contribution" to the fields, would join the $250,000 World Food Prize as a prestigious award for work in food and agriculture.

David Hodson, senior scientist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), sat down with FERN editor-in-chief Sam Fromartz in Washington to discuss the re-emergence of rust disease, a virulent fungal pathogen that attacks wheat plants and causes devastating crop losses, especially in poorer countries.

President Obama tapped Pamela Anderson, of the Gates Foundation, and Gebisa Ejeta, the 2009 winner of the World Food Prize, to serve on the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development.

The Gates Foundation is to announce its goals for the next 15 years. "Among them: financing programs to help Africa feed itself," says the New York Times.

In an interview with AgWeb, Pamela Anderson, director of agriculture development for the Gates Foundation, describes the foundation's strategy on agricultural research and food security.

AgSec Vilsack is optimistic about a foundation created by the 2014 farm law to encourage agricultural research. Funding is a recurrent problem despite wide agreement about the long-term payoff from the work.