Former US special envoy for global food security and leading advocate for global seed conservation and crop diversity, Dr. Cary Fowler has expressed concerns about how global food systems are positioned to feed the world population going forward.

At the World Seed Congress (WSC) organised by the International Federation (ISF), which recently took place in Istanbul, Turkey, Agriland asked Dr. Fowler how he believes the world is currently positioned to feed its growing population.

Dr. Fowler won the 2024 World Food Prize and was also a key architect in the development of the World Seed Vault in Svalbard.

In his keynote address to the WSC, he said: “Back in October [2024], my office at the US Department of State brought together a small group of Nobel laureates and World Food Prize laureates.

“We drafted a statement saying that we were going to fall far short of meeting food need and food demand by 2050 and we really need to now make a long-term commitment to make transformative, bold moonshot research and development in order to have the kind of transformative developments in food production that will be necessary to feed people by 2050.

“So yes, I’m worried about how we’re positioned to feed the world at this point,” he told Agriland.

Dr. Cary Fowler delivering the keynote address at the World Seed Congress

Dr. Fowler said: “Today, there at least 750 million people on earth who are food insecure. We define that as not having access to sufficient food for basic human needs.

“There are three billion people on earth than can not afford an adequate diet and, I think most tragically, there are 60 million children under the age of five who are physically and cognitively stunted – and are so because of inadequate food intake and more importantly, inadequate nutrition.

“I urge you to think about what our world is going to look like and what governments in countries are going to look like if we have a third of the children in many countries – in Africa for instance – who are growing up physically and cognitively stunted. That’s not a world we want to live in in the future.

“We don’t just have a problem with food insecurity, we have a problem with nutrition insecurity and we aren’t really thinking about those in the same way,” Dr. Fowler added.

The American agriculturalist listed six headwinds he believes are facing food security in the future:

Climate;
Soil;
Water;
Conflict;
Trade;
Research and development.

Dr. Fowler also noted that said that April was the second-hottest April ever recorded on earth.

However, he added: “More interestingly, it was the 555th consecutive month in which the global average temperature for the month exceeded the 20th century average.

“555 consecutive months of what some people would call ‘above average’ temperatures.”

He highlighted that there will also be a negative hit to food productivity in the future because of climate.

Soil and water

On soil, Dr. Fowler noted that the African Union has said as much as 50% of its current cropland may be unusable by the year 2050, while more than 75% of their land is already degraded”.

He referred to a recent study showing that 14-17% of existing global cropland is affected by toxic metal pollution.

“That means 900 million to 1.4 billion people are living in regions of what they call heightened public health and ecological risk,” Dr. Fowler explained.

On water, the agriculturalist said that “agriculture globally takes about 70% of freshwater supplies”, but also noted that this percentage is higher in his home country of the US.

“21 of 37 major aquafers in the world are in a position of being depleted faster than they are replenishing,”

Commenting on the ties between conflict and food security, he said: “Food insecurity is a cause of conflict. It has been a cause of conflict for thousands of years.

“But on the other hand, conflict is a driver of food insecurity and if you look at where the hungry people are in the world today, 60% of them are living in countries that are experiencing conflict.

“So without solving the problem of food insecurity, we’re not going to solve the problem of conflict in our world.”

Future of agriculture

On research and development, he highlighted that budgets for agricultural research and development – as well as basic scientific research – have been in decline for decades.

Dr. Fowler said: “It’s really interesting to me because, if you look at the return on investment, it’s 10-1, sometimes 30-1, and yet we’ve starved those budgets.”

The agriculturalist also quoted Norman Borlaug – who won the Nobel prize in 1970 – who famously said during his laureate lecture: “The Green Revolution has bought us 30 years of time”.

The Green Revolution refers to the development of high-yielding plant varieties in the 1940s to the 1960s. It is widely acknowledged that these developments – especially in wheat and rice crops – increased food supplies and staved off widespread starvation in developing countries.

Dr. Fowler said: “That was in 1970. We’ve passed the 30-year mark. What we haven’t done is to commit to any type of long-term initiative similar to Norman Borlaug’s.

“So, if we want to meet food need by 2050, we can’t wait until 2049, we need to be making these investments now.”

In summarising the main points of his keynote presentation, Dr. Fowler said: “Agriculture faces a historic culmination of challenges.

“I’ve never seen anything like the culmination of challenges that agriculture faces now. Any one of those challenges would be really serious but the culmination of them is something that we collectively are not taking seriously enough.”

The World Seed Congress took place from Monday, May 19, to Wednesday, May 21 in Istanbul, Turkey.

The event was organised by the International Seed Federation (ISF) and saw over 1,500 delegates from 70 countries attend.

Agriland attended the event in association with a group of 11 journalists from nine countries, facilitated by the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.

Soil and water

Future of agriculture

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ISF

World could 'fall far short' of meeting food needs by 2050 - expert