Over 150 Nobel and World Food Prize Laureates have issued an urgent call for financial and political support to develop groundbreaking “moonshot” technologies aimed at preventing a hunger crisis within the next 25 years.
In an open letter signed by 133 Nobel and World Food Prize recipients, the group warned that the world is “nowhere near” meeting future food demands. Currently, 700 million people face hunger, with an additional 1.5 billion mouths to feed by 2050. The letter cautioned that without increased global investment in cutting-edge research and innovation, humanity risks an “even more food insecure and unstable world” by mid-century.
Citing challenges including climate change, conflict and market pressures, it called for “planet-friendly ‘moonshot’ efforts leading to substantial, not just incremental, leaps in food production for food and nutrition security,” according to a press release from the World Food Prize Foundation.
Notable signatories of the letter include Robert Woodrow Wilson, the 1978 Nobel Prize winner in Physics for his discovery supporting the Big Bang theory; Wole Soyinka, the first Black African Nobel Laureate in Literature; Sir Roger Penrose, known for his groundbreaking work on black holes; and the 14th Dalai Lama.
The list also features Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Prize recipient in Economics and co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors, also lent their support.
The appeal was coordinated by Cary Fowler, joint 2024 World Food Prize Laureate and outgoing U.S. Special Envoy for Global Food Security. Additional World Food Prize Laureates endorsing the letter include NASA climate scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig, Ethiopian-American plant breeder and U.S. National Medal of Science recipient Gebisa Ejeta, and Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank.
The Laureates emphasized the severe impact of climate change on food production, especially in Africa, where rapid population growth coincides with declining yields of maize, a key staple crop, across nearly all its growing regions.
They also pointed to additional challenges eroding crop productivity, including soil erosion, land degradation, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, conflict, and restrictive policies that hinder agricultural innovation. Part of the letter states:
“Today’s challenges of access to food will be exacerbated by production challenges tomorrow. We are not on track to meet future food needs. Not even close. While much can and needs to be done to improve the flow of food to those in need, food production and accessibility must rise sharply and sustainably by mid-century, particularly where hunger and malnutrition are most severe.
“There is hope. Agricultural R&D has long been essential to increasing food production. Since the Green Revolution of the last century, our understanding of biology and genetics has increased greatly. However, requisite productivity increases are now hampered by lack of investment in basic and applied research, and by regulatory barriers prohibiting distribution and use of research advancements. Incremental agricultural productivity improvements will be insufficient to meet future needs. By failing to prioritize agricultural R&D and its dissemination today, we tie our farming systems and our fate to the past and to ever increasing use of diminishing non-replenishable resources to feed humanity.
“Agricultural research enjoys extremely favorable returns on investment when all its benefits are considered, but there are multiple market failures when it comes to providing the people of the developing world with a nutritious diet in a manner that is resilient, environmentally sustainable, and cost-effective. The benefit of enabling healthy, productive, and secure lives for billions of people has returns that flow broadly through the global economy. While some of the market failures can be addressed with current technologies, within appropriate regulatory and “pricing” frameworks (such as the pricing of carbon and water), full success in meeting the world’s nutritional needs will also require advances in basic research. Society sponsored research will be the foundation of the innovation that drives a successful food system of the future.”
According to the release, the letter cited a list of the most promising scientific breakthroughs and emerging fields of research that could be prioritized to boost food production, despite existing and future challenges. These include improving photosynthesis in staple crops such as wheat and rice to optimize growth; developing cereals that can source nitrogen biologically and grow without fertilizer; as well as boosting research into hardy, nutrition-rich indigenous crops that have been largely overlooked for improvements.
The Laureates also outlined the “moonshot” goals of improving the storage and shelf life of fruits and vegetables and creating nutrient-rich food from microorganisms and fungi.
The letter will be discussed during an event in the Senate Committee on Agriculture Room at the Nation’s Capital in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Jan. 14, followed by a webinar on Thursday, Jan. 16.
