Chamber Breakfast with the World Food Prize

Join the Downtown and West Side Chambers for their annual World Food Prize Breakfast. This year, our Borlaug Lecture Series speaker is Jim French, Senior Advocacy Advisor for Agriculture with the non-governmental organization Oxfam America.

Jim French Bio

Jim French, a fifth-generation farmer and rancher, grew up in Reno County, Kansas. He farms land homesteaded by his great-great grandparents in 1871. He and his wife, Lisa, took over management of the operation in 1979. Their operation has received national and regional recognition and awards for conservation and innovation. Jim and Lisa have been dedicated volunteers in their community, and in state organizations. In 2005, French scaled back his farming and ranching activities in order to take a position with Oxfam America. Oxfam is an international development agency that focuses primarily on addressing hunger and poverty in the world’s poorest nations. Over the years, French has helped organize and coordinate US speaking tours for farmers from around the world including Ethiopia, Haiti, Peru, Vietnam, Tanzania, and Mali. In addition, French accompanied a group of US farmers to Senegal and Mali to view firsthand the impact of US commodity subsidies on African farmers in 2006. As the Senior Advocacy Advisor for Agriculture, French works to support policies that strengthen the rights, resiliency and productivity of people challenged by extreme weather, rigged markets and access to resources.

Sponsored By: Iowa Public Radio and Walker Coen Lorentzen

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