More than 150 recipients of the Nobel and World Food prizes yesterday released an open letter calling for a dramatic increase in research and a commitment to new food distribution efforts, with a goal of producing more crops and avoiding a global hunger crisis in the coming decades.
The letter says that an estimated 700 million people now are “food insecure and desperately poor,” but that without a “moonshot” effort to grow more and different kinds of food, far more people would be in dire need of food because of climate change and population growth.
“As difficult and as 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,” says the letter, signed by 153 recipients of the two prizes. “Climate change is projected to decrease the productivity of most major staples when substantial increases are needed to feed a world which will add another 1.5 billion people to its population by 2050.”
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Corn production in Africa is expected to decline and much of the world could see more soil degradation and water shortages, the letter says.
“We are not on track to meet future food needs. Not even close,” it adds.
The letter grew from a meeting of food accessibility experts in autumn last year. Despite the potential gloom, it holds out hope for an optimistic vision of the future if people take needed actions. The letter says that a dramatic increase in research funding coupled with more effective ways to share information and distribute food could prevent a hunger crisis.
Brian Schmidt, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011, said the need to dramatically increase food production in the coming decades is a huge challenge.
He calls it a “destination with destiny,” but one that can be achieved with proper funding to enhance existing knowledge as well as global leadership.
“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 said he hopes governments in the US, Europe and elsewhere can commit to solving the problem, but he thinks private groups such as the Gates Foundation might need to take the lead in funding initial steps that would draw attention and prompt action by politicians.
The letter calls for “transformational efforts” such as enhancing photosynthesis in essential crops such as wheat and rice, developing crops that are not as reliant on chemical fertilizers, and lengthening the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.
Cynthia Rosenzweig, a climate research scientist at NASA who won the World Food Prize in 2022, said in an interview that researchers are already making progress toward breakthroughs, but their work needs to be turbocharged with more funding and emphasis 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 out into the agriculture regions of the world, we really do need the moonshot approach.”
The term moonshot refers to an unprecedented effort, stemming from then-US president John F. Kennedy’s call in 1962 for Americans to rocket to the moon.
Rosenzweig, noting she works for NASA, said meeting the food needs of a growing population would take the kind of commitment the US made in achieving Kennedy’s goal of reaching the moon.
“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.”
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