David Lane speaks on solutions to global hunger

We will need to figure out how to feed 9-9.5 billion people more nutritious food with fewer inputs, less water and pesticides and in the face of climate change by 2050, U. S. Representative to United Nations Agencies for Food and AgricultureDavid Lane MPA ’88 said in a talk about global food security.

In order to accomplish this, the world must increase its food production by an estimated 60 percent, Lane said.

He noted that agriculture is a cornerstone for the development and transformation of economies, and that according to the World Bank, growth in the agricultural sector is 2.5 times more effective at reducing poverty than investment in any other sector.

The Green Movement of the 1950s, Lane said, transformed agriculture by developing new methods for seed hybridization, extended irrigation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, leading to a 250 percent increase in world grain production. However, he noted that the success of this work may have led people to believe that work in agricultural improvement was over.

"It's my belief that people rested on their laurels and moved on, and the result, however we arrived at it, was a collapse in the investment in agriculture, even in the areas where hunger and poverty were most widespread," he explained.

He noted that in 2009, U. S. President Barack Obama initiated a G8 summit to address the issue of food security and poverty in developing nations. The framework for President Obama’s approach, called Feed the Future, works in 19 countries to reduce the prevalence of poverty and stunted children, focus on smallholder farmers, especially women, and help increase farmers’ income by increasing efficiency.

He said that research shows if female farmers had the same access to inputs – such as technology, training, land and seeds – as their male counterparts, they could feed an additional 150 million people throughout the world each year.

Lane explained that there is also a funding gap in increasing agricultural productivity that needs to come from the private sector.

“There is no way that public sector investment alone is going to generate the productivity gains that are needed to feed 9 billion people,” he said.

He added that the contributions of the private sector may also lead to more innovation and sustainability.

“When I arrived in Rome in 2012, I had to say one in every eight people on the planet was food insecure," he said.

Lane explained that he believes the government’s work has been effective.

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"Today we say it’s one in every nine,” he added.

However, he also noted that there are many concerns for food security in the future, with climate change providing the greatest threat to food and agricultural productivity. Increasing temperatures and changes in rainfall and weather patterns mean agriculture must adapt to maintain or increase food security. Lane explained that the agriculture industry emits more greenhouse gases than cars, trains, planes combined and consumes many natural resources, making it a large contributor to climate change.

Lane also explained that humanitarian concerns play an important role.

“The need for humanitarian assistance in 2016 is truly unprecedented,” he said.

More than 60 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes, the highest recorded number in history, according to Lane.Food insecurity and the instability of countries are closely linked, he added. He noted that governmental instability may lead to a lack of food security, which in turn causes more instability.

Lane explained that 41 percent of the world’s poorest live in unstable or fragile states.

“Ending extreme poverty by 2030, which President Obama said is in our sights, or zero hunger by 2030: you can't get there from here if you don't make the decision to focus on these conflict-ridden states,” he said.

The lecture, titled “The U.S. and Global Food Security: Progress and Perils,” was held at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Robertson Hall. The talk was organized by the Wilson School Office of Public Affairs and Communications. Lane is visiting the Wilson School as a Joseph S. Nye ’58 International Lecturer.