To gear up for the Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines next week – where Farming First will be acting as media partner to hosts the World Food Prize Foundation – we ran a Twitter Chat with leading spokespeople at the event and Farming First supporters.

Ambassador Kenneth M. Quinn, President of the World Food Prize Foundation kicked the discussion off with reasons why agriculture is such an important tool for poverty reduction.

Ambassador Quinn was joined by the Director of Agricultural Development at the Gates Foundation, Pamela Anderson. She had this response to why the empowerment of youth and women in agriculture can make such a big impact:

Winner of the 2015 World Food Prize, BRAC also joined the debate. When asked how we can ensure technologies end up in the hand of farmers, they introduced the idea of “frugal innovation”.

Farming First supporters Dr. Katrin Glatzel of Agriculture for Impact, and Jay Kaufman of Fintrac also joined the discussion. They shared their ideas on how to ensure that development interventions are holistic and tackle more than one area of development.

The live debate then kicked off, and 12 viewers submitted real-time questions for our panel to tackle. Adam Willman asked about the refuge crisis:

Chandra Nath Misha asked how more investment can be channeled into staple crops:

Farming First will be in Des Moines all next week, bringing you live commentary from the conference and posting a series of exclusive expert blogs. Follow @farmingfirst and stay tuned to #FoodPrize15!

For a full recap of the one-long chat, click the Storify tweet collection below.