Over 150 Nobel and World Food Prize laureates issued an open letter on Monday, calling for an urgent and dramatic increase in research and new strategies for food distribution to avert a looming global hunger crisis. The letter warns that unless there is an immediate and unprecedented global effort to boost food production, millions more people will face hunger due to climate change and population growth.
According to the signatories, approximately 700 million people worldwide are currently “food insecure and desperately poor.” The letter stresses that without substantial action to increase the availability and diversity of food crops, this number will grow as climate change and population expansion exacerbate the problem.
“As difficult and uncomfortable as it might be to imagine, humanity is headed towards an even more food-insecure, unstable world by mid-century than exists today, worsened by a vicious cycle of conflict and food insecurity,” the letter reads. “Climate change is expected to decrease the productivity of key staple crops, even as the global population is projected to grow by another 1.5 billion people by 2050.”
The letter highlights that regions such as Africa, where corn production is already expected to decline, will face growing challenges. Soil degradation and water shortages are also anticipated to affect agricultural productivity across the globe.
“We are not on track to meet future food needs. Not even close,” the letter adds.
The letter emerged from a meeting of food security experts last autumn, and while it paints a bleak picture of the future, it also emphasizes the potential for a more optimistic outcome if immediate action is taken. The laureates propose that a significant increase in research funding, combined with more efficient methods of food distribution and information-sharing, could prevent the impending crisis.
Brian Schmidt, the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate, noted that the task of increasing food production to meet the needs of future generations is daunting but achievable.
“It is an imminently solvable problem. It is a problem that will affect billions of people in 25 years. It is a problem that to solve it, there are no losers, only winners,” Schmidt said in an interview. “All we have to do is do it.”
Schmidt emphasized the importance of government involvement, especially from the US and Europe, but also suggested that private organizations like the Gates Foundation may need to take the lead in securing initial funding to spark political action.
The letter also outlines “transformational efforts” that could revolutionize food production, such as enhancing photosynthesis in staple crops like wheat and rice, developing crops that require fewer chemical fertilizers, and extending the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.
Cynthia Rosenzweig, a NASA climate research scientist and World Food Prize laureate in 2022, acknowledged that progress is already being made in agricultural research. However, she stressed that these efforts must be accelerated with additional funding and support from world leaders.
“It’s not that we have to dream up new solutions,” Rosenzweig said. “The solutions are very much being tested, but in order to actually take them from the lab into agricultural regions of the world, we really need the moonshot approach.”
Rosenzweig drew parallels between the scale of effort needed to address global food insecurity and the US’s commitment to landing on the moon during the 1960s. “Look at how the scientists had to come together. The engineers had to be part of it. The funding had to come together, as well as the general public,” she said. “That base of support has to be there as well.”
The letter’s signatories, who include influential experts in food security, climate science, and Nobel laureates, are calling on governments, organizations, and the global community to come together in a bold, coordinated effort to address the food security challenges that lie ahead.
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