More than 150 Nobel and World Food prize laureates have signed an open letter calling for “moonshot” efforts to ramp up food production before an impending world hunger catastrophe.
The coalition of some of the world’s greatest living thinkers called for urgent action to prioritise research and technology to solve the “tragic mismatch of global food supply and demand”, according to the Guardian newspaper in London.
The world was “not even close” to meeting future needs, the letter said, predicting humanity faced an “even more food insecure, unstable world” by mid-century unless support for innovation was ramped up internationally.
“All the evidence points to an escalating decline in food productivity if the world continues with business as usual,” said appeal co-ordinator Cary Fowler.
“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. We need to channel our best scientific efforts into reversing our current trajectory, or today’s crisis will become tomorrow’s catastrophe.”
The laureates’ letter outlined the climate threat, particularly in Africa, where the population is growing yet yields of the staple maize are forecast to decline. Factors undermining productivity include soil erosion, land degradation, biodiversity loss, water shortages, conflict and government policies that hold back agricultural innovation.
Citing challenges including the climate crisis, war and market pressures, the coalition called for “planet-friendly” efforts leading to substantial leaps in food production to feed 9.7 billion people by 2050.
The letter cited the most promising scientific breakthroughs and emerging fields of research that could be prioritised as “moonshot” goals. These include improving photosynthesis for wheat and rice and developing cereals that can source nitrogen biologically and grow without fertilisers; alongside boosting research into indigenous crops that tolerate extreme weather conditions, reducing food waste by improving the shelf life of fruits and vegetables, and creating food from microorganisms and fungi.
Signatories included big bang physicist Robert Woodrow Wilson; Nobel laureate chemist Jennifer Doudna; the Dalai Lama; economist Joseph E Stiglitz; Nasa scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig; Ethiopian-American geneticist Gebisa Ejeta; Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank; Wole Soyinka, Nobel prize for literature winner; and black holes Nobel physicist Sir Roger Penrose.
Rosenzweig, the 2022 World Food prize laureate, said it was a timely call: “Many if not most food-producing regions are experiencing more frequent extreme events that are damaging not only yields but farmer livelihoods as well.
“We need to launch long-term science-based actions today in order to achieve a world without hunger,” she said.
