News Tip: Political Will, Cooperation Needed to Address UN’s Food Shortages Report, Expert Says

A new UN report says climate change is threatening the world’s ability to feed itself.

• Quotes:
  “The world’s agriculture system is strained as it is, and with the massive population increases that will occur in years ahead, there are very real questions about whether the world will be able to feed itself,” says Kelly Brownell, director of the World Food Policy Center at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. “This report, put together by experts from around the world, shows in a stark way that climate change is degrading the land, driving weather extremes such as heat waves, drought, high precipitation and flooding, and turning what used to be fertile land into desert. The food supply becomes more unstable, food prices rise, and political instability follows. Migration patterns change and many more of the world’s people become refugees.”

  “To say this is a pressing issue is understatement. There are clear ways forward through public policy, if only there can be the necessary political will and unified efforts by governments across the globe.”
   

• Bio:
  Kelly Brownell is director of the World Food Policy Center at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. He is a renowned expert on food policy, diet-related disease, and obesity.
   
• For additional comment, contact Brownell at Kelly.brownell@duke.edu.