Posted on October, 25, 2023 at 10:52 pm
While the accolades and scale of the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue have gotten bigger over the decades, the challenges of addressing global hunger have gotten worse.
Named after famed Iowa wheat breeder Norman Borlaug, a 1970 Nobel Prize recipient, the Borlaug Dialogue over the decades has built its success on highlighting achievements in reducing global hunger. As many as 1,300 people from 76 countries are attending this year's conference in Des Moines.
Yet, leaders speaking at the Borlaug Dialogue about agricultural development noted efforts to reduce hunger are going backward.
One report highlighted at the event points to the World Food Program declaring a record 349 million people globally were facing acute food insecurity this year -- the most severe form of hunger.
The United Nations forecasts roughly 1 in 10 people -- about 735 million -- are facing hunger. A major U.N. goal of "zero hunger" by 2030 is in jeopardy. War zones in Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia, and now Gaza and Israel exacerbate these risks.
"The numbers of food insecure has actually risen. The crises have become more frequent," said Cary Fowler, special envoy for global food security at the U.S. State Department.
The causes of food insecurity "are perhaps more intractable than they've ever been," Fowler added.
Citing both conflict and climate change, Fowler said the push to address food production needs to accelerate, along with the needs to "protect and recapitalize our soils." More balance is needed in nutrition and better research is needed on minor crops that populations in Africa and Asia often rely on.
"We, I think, need to be more aspirational. We need to think more boldly and act more boldly. And we need some game-changing developments in agriculture and food security," Fowler said.
The U.S. also isn't immune to food insecurity. USDA's Economic Research Service on Wednesday released a report on Household Food Security in the United States for 2022. The report found that about 12.8% of households, about 17 million households, were food insecure at some point in 2022, including 6.8 million households that reported very low food security. These were significant increases from 2021.
Speaking at the dialogue, Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), was among multiple speakers calling for more investment into long-term agriculture in developing and underdeveloped countries instead of continually increasing food aid. Such efforts, he said, would require a broad political coalition.
Source: Progressive Farmer