December 9, 2016

ARDEN HILLS, MN— Land O’Lakes, Inc. has named Purdue sophomores Erica Timmons and Margaret Hegwood to its 2016-17 Emerging Leaders for Food Security fellowship. They will join the cooperative’s efforts to find sustainable, practical and achievable solutions to world hunger.

The 11 leaders hail from six universities and come from both city and rural backgrounds. As participants in the third year of the Global Food Challenge Emerging Leaders for Food Security Program, Timmons and Hegwood will be partnered with university professors and mentors from Land O’Lakes, Inc. to develop plans to fight global hunger. Throughout the academic year, they will develop a project related to food insecurity and engage their campus peers about that topic through social media. They will also take part in a summer internship at key Land O’Lakes, Inc. locations, talk with smallholder farmers in Africa and visit with policymakers and agriculture experts in Washington D.C.

“By empowering students with tools to address food insecurity, Land O’Lakes is creating leaders who can influence its industry to feed a growing population with sustainability at mind,” Timmons said.

The Lebanon, Indiana native is a member of the Purdue Honors College and College of Liberal Arts. She is studying Spanish, agribusiness management and international studies in agriculture, hoping to use her education and unique experiences to create real change in the agriculture industry. Through humanitarian volunteering in developing countries, Timmons has developed an interest in careers focused on market-based solutions to the agricultural problems currently undermining global food security.

Hegwood, of South Windsor, Connecticut, is studying biological engineering and biotechnology in the College of Engineering. She has experience working with the Mandela Washington Fellowship and researching with a Purdue Global Design Team. Both have inspired her commitment to help provide people around the world with more than just access to enough food, but to the proper nutrition to lead a healthy life.

“I know young people, like myself, can find answers as ‘game-changers,” Hegwood said. “We have the ability to work together to create innovative solutions to one of the world’s most pressing challenges.”

With the global population expected to rise to more than 9.7 billion people by 2050, according to a United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs report, the agriculture industry’s next generation of leaders will be called upon to increase food production by 70 percent. Land O’Lakes, Inc. says it created the Global Food Challenge Emerging Leaders for Food Security fellowship in 2014 to engage those future leaders in the challenges and opportunities facing agriculture in the coming decades.

Learn more about the Global Food Challenge and meet the 11 leaders here: http://foodchallenge.landolakesinc.com.