She received the World Food Prize in 2003 and this year at the same event Catherine Bertini will receive the prestigious 2011 Borlaug CAST Communication Award from the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology.

Bertini is best known for her work as Executive Director of World Food Program for the United Nations. She used her 2003 World Food Prize proceeds to start the Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls’ Education at the Friends of the World Food Program, and she has been active with many other development programs including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Humanitarian Forum.

An award presentation will occur at a breakfast co-hosted by CropLife Foundation and CAST as a side event at the World Food Prize Symposium on October 12, 2011, in Des Moines, Iowa. The Borlaug CAST Communication Award honors the legacies of Nobel Prize winner Dr. Norman Borlaug and Dr. Charles A. Black, the first president of CAST. Catherine Bertini continues the tradition of communicating the importance of science and agriculture in a world dependent on safe, affordable food. As she said, we must all “support the needs of poor farmers throughout the developing world.”