Hunger touches the lives of people throughout the world, from the affluent Bay Area to the most impoverished regions of rural Africa. Food security – the availability of plentiful, nutritious, and affordable food – is a pressing issue for rich and poor countries alike as the world population moves toward 9 billion by mid-century.

In her new book The Evolving Sphere of Food Security (Oxford University Press, August), Professor Rosamond Naylor takes a holistic approach to the question of how to feed the world. Naylor, a professor of environmental earth system science and director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE), convened 18 colleagues from across Stanford’s diverse disciplines to shed light on the interdependent issues that affect global food security.

Throughout its 14 chapters, and a foreword by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the book takes up two important questions: How does the challenge of achieving food security change as countries develop economically? And how do food and agriculture policies in one country affect nutrition, food access, natural resources and national security in other countries?

Collaboration across disciplines

Naylor, who edited the volume and co-authored several chapters, explained that The Evolving Sphere of Food Security is the first book of its kind to engage faculty and scholars from across Stanford’s campus on issues of global hunger.

Professor Rosamond Naylor

“This book grew out of a recognition by Stanford scholars that food security is tied to security of many other kinds,” said Naylor, who is also William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. “Food security has clear connections with energy, water, health, the environment and national security, and you can’t tackle just one of those pieces.”

Stanford has a long history of fostering cross-disciplinary work on global issues. It is in this spirit that the idea for the book was born, Naylor said. The book weaves together the expertise of authors from the fields of medicine, political science, engineering, law, economics and climate science.

“Stanford was the ideal place for this project. A book like this exemplifies how collaborative, interdisciplinary research can be greater than the sum of its parts,” Naylor said. “We have painted a much more inclusive picture of food security than if we had approached these questions from only one discipline.”

Rooted in field research

Another unique feature of the book is that each author’s insights are shaped by years of hands-on research and policymaking experience around the world.

Several authors, for example, have been instrumental in shaping U.S. and global food policy for decades. Walter Falcon, professor emeritus of economics and the deputy director of FSE, traces his career as an agricultural economics advisor to the Indonesian government, where he witnessed the country’s dramatic improvements in combating hunger and poverty since the 1960s.

Political science professor Stephen Stedman recounts his experience as a security policy advisor to the United Nations during the 2000s. Recognizing that food insecurity can exacerbate civil conflict, weaken governments and threaten international stability, Stedman worked to integrate food security into traditional security agendas.

Other authors have spent many years working in East Asia, Africa, South America, the Middle East and Europe. As a whole, said Naylor, the team has conducted well over a hundred years’ worth of field research all over the world.

Challenges evolve as countries develop

A recurring theme throughout the book – also reflected in its title – is the evolving nature of the food security challenges countries face as they move through stages of economic growth. At low levels of development, countries struggle to meet people’s basic needs. For example, Naylor’s chapter on health, co-authored with Eran Bendavid (medicine), Jenna Davis and Amy Pickering (civil and environmental engineering), describes a recent study showing that poor nutrition and rampant disease in rural Kenya is closely tied to contaminated, untreated drinking water. Addressing these essential health and sanitation issues is a key first step toward food security for the poorest countries.

As nations rise above the bottom rungs of development, they encounter new challenges. Scott Rozelle, director of the Rural Education Action Program, warns that middle income countries like China now face a “second food security crisis” of widespread micronutrient deficiency. Recent rapid economic and agricultural advancements have largely solved the problem of supplying sufficient calories. But this progress masks what Rozelle describes as “hidden hunger,” or a lack of vitamins and minerals that impedes kids’ school performance and could slow China’s long-term growth. Even in rich countries like the U.S., said Naylor, malnutrition can be a drag on educational and economic performance.

Developed countries face other unique tradeoffs in the use of resources for food production. In his chapter on water institutions, Buzz Thompson, professor of law and co-director of the Woods Institute, explains that conflicts over water increase between smallholder and industrial users as countries develop. Eric Lambin, professor of environmental earth system science, and Ximena Rueda, research associate in earth sciences, offer the paradox that as countries grow wealthier, changing patterns of agricultural land use may actually worsen food security by fueling the spread of obesity and diabetes.

At its core, said Naylor, The Evolving Sphere of Food Security is about more than economic and policy trends. “The book puts a human face to food security, because hunger is an intensely human experience,” she said. “This book tells an integrated story about people’s lives, and how they are shaped by resource use and the policy process around global food security.”

According to a new study co-authored by Stanford professor David Lobell, the chance of a worldwide slowdown in agricultural yield growth in the next two decades is significantly higher due to global warming.

Lobell and co-author Claudia Tebaldi, a senior researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, set out to estimate the odds of a steep drop in global wheat and corn yield progress under several climate scenarios. The study, “Getting caught with our plants down: the risks of a global crop yield slowdown from climate trends in the next two decades” appeared in Environmental Research Letters.

Lobell said he was motivated to pursue the study based on questions posed by stakeholders and decision makers in governments and the private sector.

“I’m often asked whether climate change will threaten food supply, as if it’s a simple yes or no answer,” Lobell said. “The truth is that over a 10 or 20 year period, it depends largely on how fast the Earth warms, and we can’t predict that very precisely. So the best we can do is try to determine the odds.”

Lobell and Tebaldi calculated the chance of a 10 percent global yield loss from climate change over the next 20 years, which would represent a severe impact on food supply, enough to roughly halve the rate of yield growth.

The short time frame of the study was deliberate, Lobell said. “Many studies have looked at climate and agriculture trends over the coming 50 or 100 years. But the next two decades are when most of the global population growth, and dietary shifts driven by a growing middle class, will occur. The growth rate of food demand will be higher during this time than at any other time in the next century.”

Without human-induced global warming – in other words, in a world with only natural climate variability – the likelihood of a yield drop that large is only 1 in 200. But when the team accounted for global warming, they saw the odds jump to 1 in 10 for corn and 1 in 20 for wheat. “In this study, we did not try to estimate the most likely impacts of climate change on crops,” Lobell said. “Rather, we estimated the likelihood of a really major impact, not because we want to scare people, but because there are many people who want to be prepared for all contingencies.”

“The point of the paper is to move from hand-waving about scenarios of what could go wrong, to specific and transparent estimates of the actual odds,” Lobell said. “The odds are not very high, but they are significant and a lot bigger than they used to be. The people asking these questions are accustomed to planning for scenarios with much less than a 10 percent chance of happening, so it will be interesting to see whether this study has any effect on how they operate.”

Lobell adds that organizations working toward global food security, and related issues such as conflict prevention, are most interested in the next 20 years because their decisions rarely consider the more distant future.  “As scientists, we might prefer to work on time scales in which the answers are clearer, but we also want to be responsive to the actual concerns and questions that decision makers have.”

Lobell is associate professor of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford and associate director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. He is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Contact:

David Lobell: dlobell@stanford.edu

Laura Seaman, Communications and External Relations Manager, Center on Food Security and the Environment: lseaman@stanford.edu

A new book edited by FSE director Roz Naylor and deputy director Walter Falcon brings together 21 of the leading global experts on food security and food policy.

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The new volume, like the original lecture series, convenes policy experts from around the world in the fields of food and agricultural development, for a comprehensive dialogue on pro-poor growth and food security policy.

Together, the contributing authors examine the major themes of hunger and rural poverty, agricultural productivity, resource and climate constraints on agriculture, and food and agriculture policy. With a focus on sub-Saharan Africa, the volume also draws on lessons from other parts of the world, notably Asia. 

With the goal of making the book's research insights accessible to a broad global audience, FSE self-published the Frontiers in Food Policy through CreateSpace, and Amazon.com company. Readers can purchase the volume for under $10 through Amazon, CreateSpace and other online sellers. Individual chapters are also freely available in PDF format, and videos of each of the fifteen symposium series lectures are accessible on the FSE website.

The lecture series and book volume were funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

One Ph.D. candidate and two undergraduates from Stanford have won competitive fellowships to study global food security issues.

Bourlaug Fellowship in Global Food Security

Katrina ole-MoiYoi, a doctoral candidate in Environment and Resources at the School of Earth Sciences, has received the U.S. Bourlaug Fellowship in Global Food Security, a competitive graduate research grant funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and administered by Purdue University.

The grant will support Ms. Ole-MoiYoi’s ongoing research with FSE director Roz Naylor on sustainable aquaculture, including the role of government subsidies in the growth of the Kenyan aquaculture industry. As a fellowship recipient, ole-MoiYoi will also be matched with a mentor from a leading international agricultural research institute.

Cargill Global Scholarship

Two Stanford undergraduates were among the recipient of the 2014-15 Cargill Global Scholarship. Awarded to only 10 U.S. students annually, the scholarship recognizes high academic performance and leadership potential, and is designed to develop the next generation of leaders in the field of food, agriculture and risk management.

The Stanford recipients are Mackenzie Yaryura, a double major in journalism and political science, and Darren Handoko, a chemical engineering major. As scholarship recipients, Ms. Yaryura and Mr. Handok will also participate in leadership development workshops, networking events, and one-on-one mentoring with leaders of Cargill.

Ms. Yaryura, whose interest in food security grew out of her global travels and a Stanford course on "Food and Security" taught by Roz Naylor and Stephen Stedman, plans to study public policy with a focus on education. "I am interested in exploring creative ways to empower communities to implement education on topics that address their needs - such as public health, agricultural methods, nutrition, and vocational training," she said. "The scholarship is a fantastic opportunity to be connected with diverse people with a similar goal of alleviating food security issues," she said. "I think it is a great idea to have someone that is eager to share knowledge and advice, and willing to work through issues with you as they come up."

The Cargill Global Scholars Program is administered by the Institute of International Education on behalf of Cargill, a global producer and marketer of food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services. 

Children in rural Kenya are more susceptible to disease and death the farther away they live from clean drinking water, according to Stanford researchers.

In a survey of families in Asembo – a small farming community at the edge of Lake Victoria that has high rates of chronic diarrhea, child malnutrition and child death – a research team from the Center on Food Security and the Environment found that most people live just over a quarter-mile from clean water sources. About 200 feet closer to home are ponds and springs contaminated with E. coli bacteria. Sixty-six percent of families primarily use this contaminated surface water for drinking.

A child in Asembo, Kenya sits next to her family's water storage containers.

A child in Asembo, Kenya sits next to her family's water storage containers. Photo Credit: Amy Pickering

While water is essential for farming, collecting it is time-consuming and physically exhausting in remote places like Asembo. Previous research has shown that when families must travel long distances for water, child health suffers. The harder it is to collect, the less of it a family will use. A shortage of water for cooking and drinking compromises children’s nutrition and hydration. And it limits hand washing and bathing, making children more susceptible to disease. Quality and availability of water also varies widely from source to source, and the time required to collect water can force families to use dirtier, unimproved water sources that are closer to home. 

In 2011, the FSE researchers partnered with the Centers for Disease Control Kenya Medical Research Institute (CDC-KEMRI), which was already conducting an extensive survey of household-level health indicators in the region. Combining resources with CDC-KEMRI allowed the team – led by FSE Director Rosamond Naylor, a professor of environmental earth system science, and Jenna Davis, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering – to use a robust set of data. The information covered about 3,000 households in a five kilometer radius and was collected on a bi-weekly basis for six months. In exploring the links between water, food and health in Asembo, FSE researchers first expanded the definition of water “access” to account for both physical distance and the quality of water sources.

Researchers take a child's measurements in Asembo, Kenya.

Researchers take a child's measurements in Asembo, Kenya. Photo Credit: Amy Pickering

Researchers then mapped the distance of each household from its nearest water source, and recorded whether the source was improved (such as a deep borewell) or unimproved (surface water like a pond, spring or shallow well). To get the most precise possible data on local water quality, the research team collected samples from each household’s water source and sent them to a local hospital lab for testing. Surveyors then collected data on each household’s water management practices, including water treatment. They measured agricultural output, dietary diversity, and perceived food insecurity, then recorded the weight and height measurements of each child in the household. Respondents also reported the frequency of recent cases of diarrheal disease among children of the household.

Results of the initial survey highlight sobering realities about water access in Asembo. Households in the survey reported average per capita water consumption of only 31 liters per day, including water used for cooking, drinking, hygiene and agriculture. The average walk time to the nearest water source was approximately 15 minutes. The average distance to the nearest improved source was 428 meters, whereas the average distance to unimproved surface water was 374 meters. Water quality tests confirmed that these sources, used by the majority of families, were highly contaminated with E. coli bacteria, while improved water sources were significantly cleaner. Thirty percent of children showed stunted growth, and 11 percent were underweight for their age.

A researcher collects a sample of stored water at a household in Asembo, Kenya.

A researcher collects a sample of stored water at a household in Asembo, Kenya. Photo Credit: Amy Pickering

Researchers found that close proximity to an abundant water source, regardless of quality, correlated with an increase in food production and diversity, as well as a lower hunger score. Having enough extra water for crop irrigation clearly improves children’s diets – particularly their access to the micronutrients essential for normal physical and cognitive development – and helps them resist disease. Households further from water sources reported lower and less diverse crop yields, as well as poorer child health indicators. Quality was also an important factor, as households with access to clean, improved water reported better child health outcomes than those relying on contaminated surface water.

The ultimate goal of the project, “Rural health and development at the food-water nexus” is to design interventions and policy incentives that help people absorb nutrients in environments where food and water are limited and disease is prevalent. In the next stage of the project, researchers will focus on links between water access and the progression of HIV, and will also investigate how improved diets from better water access can impact household income.

About the Stanford Research Team:

Jenna Davis is Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Higgins-Magid Faculty Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and an affiliate of the Center on Food Security and the Environment.
Rosamond Naylor is the Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment, Professor of Environmental Earth System Science, and the William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute.
Eran Bendavid is an infectious diseases physician and Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, as well as an affiliate of the Center on Food Security and the Environment and the Stanford Health Policy center.
Amy Pickering is a lecturer in the School of Earth Sciences, and a research associate in Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Center on Food Security and the Environment.
Glwadys Gbetibouo is a postdoctoral scholar at the Center on Food Security and the Environment.
Katrina ole-MoiYoi is a Ph.D. student at the Center on Food Security and the Environment.

Consumers are wary of genetically engineered crops, but FSE Director Rosamond Naylor makes the case for the role that GMOs can play in fighting persistent hunger in some of the world's poorest and malnourished places. Her perspective was included in a debate about GMOs that recently appeared in Boston Review.

I was honored and humbled to be asked to serve as a discussant for this final leg of the Gates Symposium Series, and in particular to have the opportunity to share the discussion with John Briscoe. The goal of this series is to understand how lessons from other times and places might inform an effective and sustainable effort to eliminate food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) – the one region in the world where widespread lack of access to sufficient food is still deeply entrenched. Moreover, this series has focused on and featured speakers with extensive on-the-ground work. In these regards, with his multidisciplinary work in many different countries in numerous positions, John is the ideal person to address issue the of water- and food- security connections in SSA. 

A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by FSE researchers finds smallholder irrigation has great potential to reduce hunger, raise incomes, and improve development prospects in an area of the world greatly in need of these advancements.

But even the cheapest pumps can still be prohibitively expensive without financing.

Distributed irrigation systems are those in which the water access (via pump or human power), distribution (furrow, watering can, sprinkler, drip lines, etc.), and use all occur at or near the same location.

These systems have the potential to use water more productively, improve nutritional outcomes and rural development, and narrow the income disparities that permit widespread hunger to persist despite economic advancement.

Only 4 percent of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa is currently irrigated. 

"Success stories can be found where distributed systems are used in a cooperative setting, permitting the sharing of knowledge, risk, credit and marketing as we've seen in our solar market garden project in Benin," said lead author Jennifer Burney

Moving forward development communities and sub-Saharan African governments need a better understanding of present water resources and how they will be affected by climate change.

"Farmers need access to financial services—credit and insurance—appropriate for a range of production systems," said co-author Rosamond L. Naylor. "Investments should start at a smaller scale, with thorough project evaluation, before scaling up."

FSE continues to contribute to these evaluations and added eight new villages to our project in Benin last year.