Morgan Carrington "Cary" Fowler Jr. (born 1949) is an American agriculturalist and the former executive director of the Crop Trust, currently serving as a senior advisor to the trust. On May 5th, Dr. Fowler joined the U.S. Department of State as U.S. Special Envoy for Global Food Security.

Background

Fowler was born in 1949 to Morgan, a General Sessions judge, and Betty, a dietician. He graduated from White Station High School in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1967, and attended

Rhodes College Rhodes College is a private liberal arts college in Memphis, Tennessee. Historically affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), it is a member of the Associated Colleges of the South and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges ...

in Memphis, but transferred in his

junior year A junior is person in the third year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. In United States high schools, a juni ...

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located ...

in Canada, earning his B.A. Honors degree in 1971. He received a Ph.D. degree in

Sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

from

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance durin ...

in Sweden. Fowler was active in

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...

demonstrations in Memphis. He was present at the Mason Temple on April 3, 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr. made his last speech, " I've Been to the Mountaintop". During the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, he obtained

conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to obje ...

status and worked at a hospital in North Carolina.

Career

In the 1970s-80s Fowler was Program Director for the National Sharecroppers Fund/Rural Advancement Fund. Following this, he served as Professor and Director of Research in the Department for International Environment & Development Studies at the

Norwegian University of Life Sciences The Norwegian University of Life Sciences ( no, Norges miljø- og biovitenskapelige universitet, NMBU) is a public university located in Ås, Norway. It is located at Ås in Viken, near Oslo, and at Adamstuen in Oslo and has around 5,200 stud ...

in Ås,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. He also led the International Conference and Programme on Plant Genetic Resources at the

Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

of the United Nations (UN) in the 1990s. There, he produced the UN's first global assessment of the state of the world's crop diversity and was the chief author of the

's Global Plan of Action for Plant Genetic Resources. He subsequently supervised the negotiations that led to its adoption by 150 countries in 1996. From 1996 to 2001, Fowler represented the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in negotiations for the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. In 2010, he played a lead role in saving one of the world's largest living collections of fruit and berry varieties at the Pavlovsk Experiment Station in Russia. In order to save the Station, he led an international campaign of scientists and citizens who voiced their concerns about the threatened conversion of this station to a housing development. In 2013, Fowler was elected to Membership in the Russian Academy of Sciences, which carries the title of Academician. He is one of two foreign members of the Academy. Fowler has also previously served as a Special Assistant to the Secretary General of the World Food Summit, as a board member of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico, as the chair of the board of The Livestock Conservancy, as a member of the Seed Savers Exchange board, and as a member of the National Plant Genetic Resources Board of the U.S. Fowler is also a member of the New York Botanical Garden Corporation. On June 1, 2015, United States President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

announced his intent to appoint Fowler as a Member of the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development. In April 2017, Fowler was elected Chair of the Board of Trustees of

. After being appointed by U.S. President Joe Biden, Fowler officially join the Office of Global Food Security at the U.S. Department of State on May 5, 2022.

Global Crop Diversity Trust

Fowler served as the Executive Director of the

Global Crop Diversity Trust The Crop Trust, officially known as the Global Crop Diversity Trust, is an international organization, international nonprofit organization with a secretariat in Bonn, Bonn, Germany. Its mission is to conserve and make available the world's crop di ...

from 2005 to 2012. The trust's mandate is to ensure "the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide." Fowler was influential in the creation of the

Svalbard Global Seed Vault The Svalbard Global Seed Vault ( no, Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure backup facility for the world's crop diversity on the Norway, Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The Seed Vault provides long-te ...

, which currently houses samples of more than one million distinct crop varieties. Working with partner genebanks in 71 countries during Fowler's tenure as executive director, the Trust helped rescue 83,393 unique crop varieties from extinction. It sponsored more than 40 projects to screen crop collections for important traits such as heat and drought tolerance. In partnership with the USDA, a state-of-the-art genebank management system ("GRIN-Global") was developed and made available to 38 genebanks internationally, and the first ever global portal to accession (sample) level information (Genesys) was launched. The Trust's endowment grew more than $100 million to $134 million, and total funds raised surpassed $200 million. By the end of Fowler's tenure, the Trust concluded three major agreements intended to protect and conserve crop diversity: with the Millennium Seed Bank of Kew Gardens, the indigenous communities in the Andes, and the international genebanks of the Consultive Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). He stepped down as Executive Director of the trust in late 2012 but continues to serve in an advisory role and chairs the International Advisory Council of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Awards and honors

Fowler has received several honorary degrees, including an Honorary Doctorate of Law degree from Simon Fraser University, an Honorary Doctorate of Science degree from Rhodes College, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities degree from Oberlin College. He received the

Right Livelihood Award The Right Livelihood Award is an international award to "honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today." The prize was established in 1980 by German-Swedish philanthropist Jakob ...

with

Pat Mooney Pat Roy Mooney, for more than thirty years, has worked with civil society organizations on international trade and development issues related to agriculture, biodiversity and emerging technologies. He was born and lived on the Canadian prairies ...

in 1985 for his work in

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peop ...

and the preservation of

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic ('' genetic variability''), species ('' species diversity''), and ecosystem ('' ecosystem diversity' ...

. Fowler has also received the Vavilov Medal from the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. In 2010, he was one of ten recipients of the 16th Annual Heinz Awards with a special focus on global change. In 2012, he was awarded the "Wind Beneath my Wings" award jointly with his wife

Amy P. Goldman Amy Goldman Fowler (born 1954) is an American billionaire heiress, gardener, author, artist, philanthropist, and advocate for seed saving and heirloom fruits and vegetables. She is one of the foremost heirloom plant conservationists in the US. Go ...

Bette Midler Bette Midler (;''Inside the Actors Studio'', 2004 born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress, comedian and author. Throughout her career, which spans over five decades, Midler has received numerous accolades, including four Golden Gl ...

's annual "Hulaween" party. He was the baccalaureate speaker at the 2013 Rhodes College commencement ceremonies and received the 2015 William L. Brown Award for Excellence in Genetic Resource Conservation from the Missouri Botanical Garden. In 2016 Fowler received the Frank N. Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources, given by the Crop Science Society of America. He and his wife Amy Goldman Fowler jointly received the "Visionary" Award from the

American Visionary Art Museum The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) is an art museum located in Baltimore, Maryland's Federal Hill neighborhood at 800 Key Highway. The museum specializes in the preservation and display of outsider art (also known as "intuitive art," "raw ...

. Fowler's book ''Seeds on Ice: Svalbard and the Global Seed Vault'' was awarded the 2016 Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal for best book in the Ecology/Environment category. Fowler received the 2018 Thomas Jefferson Medal in Citizen Leadership, awarded jointly by the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with College admission ...

and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, and gave the keynote address at

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...

on the occasion of Jefferson's 275th birthday.

Media

Fowler has made many media appearances, including the CBS news show ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique st ...

''. He has been profiled in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

'' magazine, presented at the Pop!Tech conference and spoken at the TED Global Conference in Oxford. Fowler was the focus of the 2013 documentary ''Seeds of Time'', directed by director Sandy McLeod. The film centers on Fowler's work to protect the world's food supply with the

and the challenges facing seed protection and genetic diversity efforts as a result of climate change. It was produced by J. D. Marlow, Emily Triantaphyllis, and Chiemi Karasawa. ''Seeds of Time'' won the Audience Award at the San Francisco Green Film Festival 2014, Best Film at the Portland EcoFilm Festival 2014, and Best Cinematography at the Costa Rica Film Festival (Internacional de Cine) 2014. It was an official selection at

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

2014 and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2014, and has been screened more than 90 times.

Personal life

In 2012, Fowler married author, gardener, and seed saving advocate

. He has two children and is a melanoma and testicular cancer survivor.

Bibliography

In addition to authoring more than 100 articles in various agriculture, law development and biology journals, Fowler has authored and coauthored several books. * * * * *

References

External links

Global Crop Diversity Trust

Speech given at Pop!Tech, 2007

Speech given at The Do Lectures, 2008
* *
"One seed at a time, protecting the future of food" (TEDGlobal 2009)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fowler, Cary American agronomists American conservationists 20th-century American botanists 21st-century American botanists Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Uppsala University alumni People from Memphis, Tennessee Scientists from Tennessee 1949 births Living people Sol Goldman family