Iowa Hunger Summit - Iowans United in Fighting Hunger at Home and Abroad

Building Awareness of Food Insecurity in One State as Part of the “Most Significant Observance of World Food Day Anywhere Around the Globe”

The specific goals of the Iowa Hunger Summit are:

• To celebrate the many outstanding efforts of Iowans toward ensuring adequate food for all;

• To encourage Iowans to continue and expand these efforts; and

• To increase statewide awareness of hunger, poverty, and related issues.




	The Iowa Hunger Summit focuses on the efforts of Iowans to fight hunger at home and abroad. Courtesy World Food Program/Ramin Rafira

The Iowa Hunger Summit promotes community action and collaboration in alleviating hunger at home and abroad. It serves as a day for community leaders to come together, united by their interest in fighting hunger, representing organizations, businesses, government, social agencies, religious communities, schools, etc.

This unique Iowa event, free and open to the public, features sessions on a variety of hunger-related issues from a wide range of perspectives. These sessions not only recognize the work being done to fight domestic and international hunger, but also to spread awareness and inspire further hunger-fighting efforts. (To see details about previous sessions, please visit Event Information)

With former Iowa Governors Robert Ray, Terry Branstad, and Tom Vilsack serving as honorary co-chairs, the Iowa Hunger Summit draws inspiration from the legacy of statewide efforts, such as the Iowa CARES project to raise money to counter hunger in Ethiopia and the Iowa SHARES campaign to feed starving Cambodians. As Pope John Paul II stated in Des Moines in his 1979 address to rural Americans, “You are the stewards of the earth, with an obligation to feed all mankind.”

The Iowa Hunger Summit is held annually on or around October 16, celebrated globally as UN World Food Day. It also precedes the internationally renowned Borlaug Dialogue international symposium and the awarding of the World Food Prize, referred to by many as “the Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture.”

For more information on the Iowa Hunger Summit, please contact Justin Hayes at 515-245-3734 or jhayes@worldfoodprize.org.