Back in July, I had a revelatory conversation with Ertharin Cousin, the former head of the U.N. World Food Program. Most people think about the issue of hunger in the wrong way, she said. It’s not that there are too many people on the planet, as many of us assume; nor is the problem that we can’t make enough food. “If we embrace science and innovation,” Cousin said, “we can feed every person on this planet.”

Consider the latest issue of Foreign Policy magazine, out Monday, an embrace of those principles—a collection of practical ideas for getting smarter about food production, making supply chains more efficient, and wasting less. We at FP felt a sense of urgency about exploring this topic because feeding the planet has become even more critical lately. For a long time, the proportion of the world’s population affected by hunger stayed relatively stable, albeit unacceptably high: about 8 percent, according to the United Nations. Then COVID-19 struck. By the end of 2020, with supply chains broken and global trade clogged, that number had inched up to 9.3 percent. A year later, as the full impacts of pandemic-related shutdowns were realized, the ratio rose higher, to 9.8 percent.

By the time the dust settles on 2022, the numbers could worsen still, with food supplies from Russia and Ukraine—two of the world’s largest grain and fertilizer producers—largely cut off from the world. Beyond hunger, 2.3 billion people—or nearly 30 percent of the world’s population—qualify as moderately or severely food-insecure. Inflation has put a healthy diet out of reach for many: 3.1 billion people around the world are unable to afford the nutrition they need.

The question is how to turn that trajectory around. In this issue, you’ll hear from food and climate experts, crop scientists, food and agriculture analysts, and journalists who provide imaginative and concrete solutions to the knotty issue of global food security.


As ever,
Ravi Agrawal


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