Roswell Garst

Roswell "Bob" Garst was an American farmer and seed company executive who helped bring hybrid corn into wide use on American farms. He developed a hybrid corn seed business beginning in 1930 that produced far greater yields than the open-pollinated corn varieties farmers had relied on before, and he built a major seed enterprise around it. Garst became an unlikely figure in Cold War diplomacy when he began selling hybrid seed to the Soviet Union in 1955 and hosted Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev at his farm in Coon Rapids, Iowa, in September 1959, a visit that helped open communication between American farmers and the Soviet Union.