David Garst was a seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

 industry leader, farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

, and former Executive President of Garst Seed Company

Garst Seed Company

Garst Seed Company is a U.S.-based subsidiary of Syngenta that produces hybrid seeds for agriculture. In 1931, Garst and Thomas Hi-Bred Corn Company was founded by Roswell Garst and Charley Thomas in Coon Rapids, Iowa. In 1983, the company split up and Garst Seed Company was formed....

. He also worked in the livestock

Livestock

Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...

, fertilizer

Fertilizer

Fertilizer is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. A recent assessment found that about 40 to 60% of crop yields are attributable to commercial fertilizer use...

, and chemical

Chemical industry

The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials into more than 70,000 different products.-Products:...

 businesses, and contributed to foreign agricultural development projects in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

, Central America

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

, and the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

. Garst believed that farming in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 is fettered by governmental and environmental regulation.

Garst was appointed by the Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 administration to the Presidential Mission on Agricultural Development in Central America and the Caribbean. The work of this committee led to the Caribbean Basin Initiative

Caribbean Basin Initiative

The Caribbean Basin Initiative was a unilateral and temporary United States program initiated by the 1983 "Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act" . The CBI came into effect on January 1, 1984 and aimed to provide several tariff and trade benefits to many Central American and Caribbean countries....

 passed under President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

. Garst helped to develop the National Corn Growers Association that promoted open trade with Communist countries and sends aid in the form of farming technology to developing nations. In the 1990s, under the Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 administration, Garst lead the agricultural portion of a development project in the Staritsky district of Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. The project included the development of a dairy industry, egg and broiler houses, hog farm

Intensive pig farming

Intensive piggeries are a type of factory farm ' specialized in the raising of domestic pigs up to slaughter weight...

s, packing plants, roads, and marketing systems. Garst was a leader in Howard Dean

Howard Dean

Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...

's campaign in Iowa and was an active voice in the opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq

2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

.

Garst married Georganne (Jo) Orenstein (October 9, 1928 - March 1, 1984) on July 12, 1949 and Marilyn Ann Shinn on March 23, 1985 (divorced 1996). He married Marilyn Reineke in May 2005. He was the son of agriculturalist Roswell Garst

Roswell Garst

Roswell "Bob" Garst was an American farmer and seed company executive. He developed hybrid corn seed in 1930 that allowed greater crop yields than open-pollinated corn. He was perhaps most well known for hosting Nikita Khrushchev on his farm in Coon Rapids, Iowa, on September 23, 1959...

and Elizabeth Henak.

External links

• Garst Seed Company homepage