[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 83 (Tuesday, May 14, 2024)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E484-E485]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONGRATULATING CARY FOWLER ON BEING NAMED A WORLD FOOD PRIZE LAUREATE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. STEVE COHEN

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 14, 2024

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate my friend and 
former Memphis neighbor Cary Fowler, currently serving as the U.S. 
State Department's Special Envoy for Global Food Security, who was 
recently named a World Food Prize Laureate at a ceremony at the State 
Department. Dr. Fowler is perhaps best known as the ``father'' of the 
Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which United Nations Secretary General Ban 
Ki-Moon described as an ``inspirational symbol of peace and food 
security for the entire humanity.'' The facility on a Norwegian 
archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole opened in 2008 
and provides ultimate security for more than 1.2 million unique crop 
varieties, the biological foundation of agriculture and the raw 
material for all future plant breeding. Dr. Fowler is the former 
Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an international 
organization based in Rome cosponsored by the Food and Agriculture 
Organization of the United Nations (UN FAO) and the Consultative Group 
on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Prior to leading the 
Crop Diversity Trust, Dr. Fowler was a Professor at the Norwegian 
University of Life Sciences, and a senior staff member of Bioversity 
International. Earlier, he oversaw the U.N.'s first global assessment 
of the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources. He was responsible 
for drafting and negotiating the first FAO Global Plan of Action on the 
Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources, 
formally adopted by 150 countries in 1996. Following this, Dr. Fowler 
twice served as Special Assistant to the Secretary General of the World 
Food Summit and represented the CGIAR in the multi-year negotiations on 
the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. In 2015, Dr. 
Fowler was appointed to the Board for International Food and 
Agricultural Development by President Obama. He is a former board 
member of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and 
former chair of the Livestock Conservancy. Dr. Fowler is a member of 
the Council on Foreign Relations, has delivered a TED Talk, and is a 
frequent lecturer at universities around the world. He is the author of 
Shattering: Food, Politics and the Loss of Genetic Diversity, and 
Unnatural Selection: Technology, Politics and Plant Evolution, as well 
as Seeds on Ice: Svalbard and the Global Seed Vault. He is also the 
recipient of several awards including the Right Livelihood Award, the 
Vavilov Medal, the Heinz Award, Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings 
Award, the William Brown Award of the Missouri Botanical Garden, the 
Proctor Medal of the Garden Clubs of America, the Thomas Jefferson 
Medal in Citizen Leadership, and three honorary doctorates. He is one 
of two foreign elected members of the Russian Academy of Agricultural 
Sciences. In his spare time, he and his wife, Amy, an heirloom plant 
conservationist, tend an apple orchard with more than 100 varieties in 
New York's Hudson River Valley. In their marriage, one plus one equals 
three. They are a simpatico couple,

[[Page E485]]

loving the Earth and its products. The World Food Prize, awarded since 
1986, was the idea of agronomist Norman Borlaug, known as ``the father 
of the Green Revolution,'' who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 and 
the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. Dr. Fowler will share this 
year's award with agricultural scientist Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin. Dr. 
Fowler's forward-thinking work is protecting humanity itself and 
helping secure its future, and I congratulate him.

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