An open letter calling for efforts to increase food production to avert a world hunger catastrophe has been signed by more than 150 winners of the Nobel and World Food Prizes.
The signatories made a plea for political and financial backing to come up with “moonshot” technologies in the next quarter century, a press release from the World Food Prize said.
The laureates warned that humans were “not even close” to meeting the global food needs of the future.
The letter predicted that, by mid-century, humanity would be faced with an “even more food insecure, unstable world,” unless international efforts to support the latest research and innovation were ramped up.
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“All the evidence points to an escalating decline in food productivity if the world continues with business as usual,” said Cary Fowler, joint World Food Prize laureate for 2024 and the outgoing United States special envoy for global food security, who coordinated the appeal. “With 700 million food insecure people today, and the global population expected to rise by 1.5 billion by 2050, this leaves humanity facing a grossly unequal and unstable world.”
In its call for “planet-friendly ‘moonshot’ efforts leading to substantial, not just incremental, leaps in food production for food and nutrition security,” the letter cited challenges including climate change, market pressures and conflict.
Among those who endorsed the letter were 1978 Nobel Prize-winner in physics Robert Woodrow Wilson, whose discovery supported the “big bang theory” of creation; the 14th Dalai Lama; Wole Soyinka, who was the first Black African winner of the Nobel Prize; and Sir Roger Penrose, whose work helped advance the understanding of black holes.
“We know that agricultural research and innovation can be a powerful lever, not only for food and nutrition security, but also improved health, livelihoods and economic development. We need to channel our best scientific efforts into reversing our current trajectory, or today’s crisis will become tomorrow’s catastrophe,” Fowler said in the press release.
The letter’s signatories emphasized the climate crisis’ threat to food production, especially in Africa, which has the fastest rate of population growth coupled with forecast declines in staple maize crops across nearly all of the continent’s growing area.
“It’s almost as if people are burying their head in the sand,” said Geoffrey Hawtin, an agricultural scientist who was the British co-recipient of the 2024 World Food Prize, as The Guardian reported. “It’s very easy to defer tackling it, but if we wait until there really is a massive food crisis then we’ll have 10 to 15 [years] to live in that crisis.”
“You can’t solve that sort of problem overnight. From the time you start a research programme to the time it can have a significant impact on production, you’re talking 10 to 15 years,” Hawtin said. “It does require political will, international political will. It really needs the focused attention of international institutions.”
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Other factors impacting crop productivity include land degradation, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, conflict, water shortages and policies that restrict agricultural innovation.
“The impacts of climate change are already reducing food production around the world, but particularly in Africa, which bears little historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions yet sees temperatures rising faster than elsewhere,” said President of the African Development Bank Akinwumi Adesina, recipient of the 2017 World Food Prize, in the press release. “Future temperature rises are expected to be most extreme in countries with already low productivity, compounding existing levels of food insecurity. In low-income countries where productivity needs to almost double by 2050 compared to 1990, the stark reality is that it’s likely to rise by less than half. We have just 25 years to change this.”
The letter cited the most promising emerging fields of research and scientific breakthroughs that could be prioritized in order to boost food production, even in the face of existing and future challenges. These included developing cereals that are able to biologically source nitrogen and grow without fertilizer; improving photosynthesis in crops like rice and wheat to optimize growth; and boosting research into nutrition-rich, hardy Indigenous crops that have mostly been overlooked.
The letter also outlined “moonshot” goals for the improvement of the shelf life and storage of fruits and vegetables, as well as creating nutrient-rich food from fungi and microorganisms.
“This is an ‘Inconvenient Truth’ moment for global hunger. Having the world’s greatest minds unite behind this urgent wake-up call should inspire hope and action. If we can put a man on the moon, we can surely rally the funding, resources and collaboration needed to put enough food on plates here on Earth. With the right support, the scientific community can deliver the breakthroughs to prevent catastrophic food insecurity in the next 25 years,” said Mashal Husain, incoming World Food Prize Foundation president, in the press release.
There will be a webinar on the letter on Thursday, January 16.
“The research-driven green revolution that has dramatically lowered malnutrition across the globe over the past 60 years is losing momentum, with food insecurity once again on the rise, and a looming crisis emerging by 2050. Investment in research, especially in the places that are likely to be affected in the future, will improve food security now, and help alleviate potential future crises,” said Brian Schmidt, 2011 Nobel Prize-winner in physics, in the press release. “This is an eminently solvable problem, relatively inexpensive, with a payoff benefitting all of humanity.”
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