Challenges to Global Food Security and Environmental Sustainability

Increasing population, rising affluence, changing diets, and increasing consumption are placing unprecedented demands on the world's agriculture and natural resources. Today, approximately a billion people are chronically malnourished while our agricultural systems are concurrently degrading land, water, biodiversity and climate across regional and global scales. To meet the world’s future food security and sustainability needs, food production systems must grow substantially while, at the same time, agriculture’s environmental footprint must shrink dramatically. In this presentation, we will discuss potential solutions to this multi-faceted dilemma, showing that tremendous progress could be made by targeting key strategic levers linked to deforestation, yield gaps, efficiency, diets, biofuels and food waste.