Over 150 Nobel and World Food Prize laureates call for urgent action to prevent global hunger crisis

More than 150 recipients of the Nobel and World Food Prizes issued an open letter on Tuesday, urging an increase in research and a commitment to new food distribution initiatives, with a goal to boost crop production and prevent a global hunger crisis in the coming decades.

The letter noted that an estimated 700 million people now are “food insecure and desperately poor” but that without a “moonshot” effort to grow more and different kinds of food, far more people will be in dire need of food 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,” the letter said, which was 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.”

Corn production in Africa is expected to decline, and much of the world could see more soil degradation and water shortages, the letter said, adding that the world is “not on track to meet future food needs. Not even close.”

The letter emerged from a meeting of food accessibility experts last autumn. While acknowledging the challenges ahead, it offers an optimistic vision for the future, provided necessary actions are taken. The letter emphasises that a significant increase in research funding, along with more efficient methods of sharing information and distributing food, could avert a global hunger crisis.

Moreover, the experts called for “transformational efforts” such as enhancing photosynthesis in essential crops, including wheat and rice; developing crops that are not as reliant on chemical fertilisers; and lengthening the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.

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 agricultural regions of the world, we really do need the moonshot approach.”