Source: Desmoinesregister

As we gather to celebrate World Food Day and look out on a bountiful harvest in the breadbasket of Iowa, my continent of Africa is suffering its worst drought in a generation.

The failure of the African skies to pour nourishing rain onto the soil could cost millions of people their lives.

I'm about to receive one of the great honors of my life: I'm the recipient of the 2015 Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award, to be presented in Des Moines,Tuesday.

I wish I could be in two places at once. Accepting the Kleckner Award in Des Moines will prevent me from attending World Rural Women's Day in Ghana.

World Rural Women's Day commemorates the multiple roles that women play, especially in agriculture. Here's a fact that many people do not realize: Women are responsible for roughly half of the world's food production. In the developing world, they account for at least 80 percent of it.

In Ghana, women like me cultivate most of our country's vegetables, cereals and other food crops. More than 20 percent of our works is unpaid. It contributes to sustenance and family operations.

The World Rural Women's Day celebration will focus on land and the contributions of rural women who fish along the coastline of Ghana. Just as farmers worry about drought, fisher folk worry about the depletion of stocks — these threats pose major challenges to food security.

Drought can affect farmers anywhere. The drought in California has devastated farmers in an area world famous for its agricultural productivity. The United States, however, is a developed nation — the drought has caused hardship but nobody expects it to lead to large-scale malnutrition and starvation.

Things are different in Africa, with no simple solutions to its agricultural dilemmas. Farmers I work with lack access to credit, land and labor. Many suffer from illiteracy, poor management skills and bad or nonexistent infrastructure. The delivery of extension services is skewed. And although agriculture is essential, it's held in low regard.

One major problem is that we don't benefit from the latest technologies. From Africa, we look at North and South America farmers with envy, wishing we could use the same genetically modified organism (GMO) tools to overcome weeds, pests and drought they have access to.

We don't need handouts from wealthy countries. We just need the same opportunities to succeed.

Africa's current drought has not yet touched Ghana, but it stretches the full length of our continent. The United Nations predicts that more people in Ethiopia will need food assistance next year than in war-torn Syria.

That's how bad things are for food security: It's like living in a war zone.

As we enjoy the World Food Prize this week, let's listen to each other and learn what we can. Let's be thankful that we'll eat well.

And let's not forget the plight of Africa — and that we all have a role to play in making it better.