August 11, 2025
“I Dream of a Million Hectares of Pumpkins”
When East-West Seed founder Simon N. Groot won the World Food Prize in 2019, it didn’t take him long to decide what he was going to do with the award money. Pumpkins—highly nutritious and relatively easy to grow and store—always had a special place in his heart.
Pumpkins in Africa
“Pumpkins hold great potential to impact community nutrition and bring economic empowerment to smallholder farmers, especially women,” Simon said. “I dream of a million hectares of pumpkins in Africa.”
It was this potential that motivated him to donate the funds from his award to East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation (EWS-KT) to carry out the Pumpkins in Africa project, with the goal of accelerating the growth of the pumpkin sector in Africa, starting in Uganda.
Over the course of this 3.5-year project, more than 14,000 farmers in Uganda learned how to use improved techniques to successfully grow high-quality pumpkins, opening doors to greater yields and better incomes. As farmers increased their pumpkin production, they simultaneously transformed pumpkin markets, creating opportunities for traders, market sellers, and consumers, who could more easily purchase this nutritional powerhouse.
The Pumpkins in Africa project was just the first step toward realizing Simon’s pumpkin vision in Africa. Since the project ended in January 2024, the EWS-KT team in Uganda has reached nearly 2,000 additional farmers with intensive training in pumpkin cultivation, and market demand is strong. Further expansion is on the horizon, with EWS-KT teams in Tanzania and Nigeria beginning to take up the pumpkin banner.
Pumpkins in Asia
While Simon dedicated his World Food Prize funds to expanding pumpkin production in Africa, his devotion to pumpkin was in evidence in Asia more than 30 years earlier—when East-West Seed’s first hybrid pumpkin variety was created in the Philippines.
Farmers there were having enormous challenges with mosaic and leaf curl viruses.
So East-West Seed developed a virus-resistant pumpkin that, in Simon’s words, also “lasted longer, tasted a bit better, looked a bit better.” Market demand soon followed, and Simon’s legacy of improved incomes for farmers, more opportunities along the value chain, and more nutritious vegetables for consumers was cemented.
Today, with the benefit of high-quality pumpkin varieties and improved farming techniques, farmers in India and Bangladesh are also increasingly recognizing the business potential in pumpkin.
Carrying on the Pumpkin Legacy
Simon never stopped believing in the power of pumpkin to improve farmers’ livelihoods and communities’ nutrition. His legacy lives on in farmers around the world, and East-West Seed and EWS-KT are committed to continuing to carry his pumpkin vision forward.
Are you interested in being a part of Simon’s pumpkin legacy? Contact us to learn more about partnerships that open new avenues of opportunity for smallholder farmers.
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