As an Iowan and a farmer, I take great pride in our state being home to the World Food Prize and marveled at the many great minds from around the globe who recently met in Des Moines to discuss food production and the challenges we face feeding a growing global population. The Des Moines Register’s editorial, "World still falling short of feeding 9 billion," and World Food Prize symposium clearly laid out the challenge we face: How can we meet the world’s growing demand for food with limited resources while minimizing our environmental footprint?

Innovation and continuous im­­provement are the cornerstone to modern agricultural practices and have led to tremendous ...