Land O'Lakes, Inc. Chooses 11 Recipients for Annual Global Hunger Fellowship

Melding together two leading issues in today’s industry, global hunger and the next wave of leaders, Land O’Lakes, Inc. has recently undertaken another installment of its annual program aimed at solving both initiatives. The company has announced 11 students to partake in its Global Food Challenge Emerging Leaders for Food Security™ Program. 

"Ag is the greatest growth industry of our generation and presents many dynamic career opportunities. We need people from different backgrounds to make a difference in feeding the growing global population," said Lydia Botham, Vice President, Community Relations and the Land O'Lakes Foundation.

The 11 college sophomores hail from six different universities and will be partnered through the program with university professors and mentors from Land O’Lakes. Through this partnership and program, the Emerging Leaders will tackle plans to help fight world hunger.

According to a press release, the program for the students encompasses the following:

• Develop a project to address solutions for food insecurity
• Engage campus peers through social media
• Spend summer internship at Land O’Lakes’ headquarters, a dairy member farm, and member agriculture cooperatives
• Visit policymakers and ag experts in Washington DC
• Visit smallholder farmers in Africa
• Address issues of sustainability, global supply chains, and ensuring greater access to new markets

The program will take place throughout the academic year and summer, and is poised to position the students in achieving practical solutions to world hunger. The students hail from both rural and city backgrounds, and are pursuing degrees in a diverse range of fields.

"The program was a once-in-a-lifetime experience," said Abby Adair, a 2015 alumna and business student from Purdue University. "I realized how important farmers' work is and that I need to be telling the story of agriculture."

Land O’Lakes stated that it selects the program’s participants from a diverse selection of backgrounds in order to develop sustainable solutions for the world population. The company named that the population is expected to rise to more than 9.7 billion people by 2050, which means food production should increase by 70 percent.

The Land O’Lakes Global Food Challenge Emerging Leaders for Food Security™ was first initiated in 2014 to engage the future leaders of the world in the prevailing issues of our industry. This program is just one part of the company’s commitment to improving food security and growing business through sustainability.

Those who wish to learn more about the program can do so here.