Cary Fowler

Dr. Cary Fowler recently stepped down as the Special Envoy for Global Food Security at the U.S. Department of State, where he promoted the “Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils” (VACS) to catalyze research and development of indigenous African Crops. From 2005-12, he was the Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust which provides on-going support to major crop genebanks around the world. Prior to that he was Professor and Head of Research at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and a senior advisor in the CGIAR system.

Dr. Fowler is perhaps best known as the “father” of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault which holds samples of 1.3 million unique crop varieties. In the 1990s he led the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) initiative to produce the first Report on the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources and the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of PGRFA. He holds a Ph.D. from Uppsala University in Sweden and four honorary doctorates as well as the Award for Citizen Leadership from the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and the Proctor Award from the Garden Clubs of American. Most recently he was named the 2024 World Food Prize Laureate.

He is a native of Tennessee and currently lives on a farm in upstate New York with his wife Amy Goldman, a seed saver and writer of garden, fruit and vegetable books.