Nobel prize winners demand investment in food solutions to avoid global hunger crisis

More than 150 Nobel and World Food prize winners have written an open letter calling for greater investment in new food distribution efforts in the face of a global hunger crisis.

The letter notes that an estimated 700 million people are "food insecure and desperately poor" but that without a "moonshot" effort to grow more and different kinds of food, that number will end up far higher 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,” states 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.”

“We are not on track to meet future food needs. Not even close."

Corn production in Africa, for example, is expected to decline and much of the world could see more soil degradation and water shortages, the letter says.

Despite the gloomy outlook, however, experts remain hopeful that the crisis can be avoided if people take the necessary actions.

The letter, which emerged after a meeting of food accessibility experts last year, 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 fertilisers and lengthening the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.

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 like the Gates Foundation may need to take the lead in funding initial steps that will draw attention and prompt action by politicians.

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.”