Food Security

Senator Dick Lugar, Indiana's senior Senator and the Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has long been concerned with the causes and consequences of food security and the effects it has on security and poverty alleviation.

The spikes in food prices that occurred in 2007 and 2008 demonstrated the fragility of global agriculture, and how quickly disruptions in one region can spread to others. Over 40 countries have faced food shortages and social unrest and, even in countries with no shortages, consumers are devoting an ever-larger share of income to food purchases.  

More than one billion people now live with chronic hunger. Population growth rates indicate that food demand will double by 2050. Unless we act, this problem will become much more severe. Growing populations, urbanization, changing diets, stresses on water, and energy uncertainty all will complicate our ability to prevent food price volatility and to expand food self-sufficiency.  

The international community has failed to understand the necessity of maintaining investments in agriculture, both for food production and poverty alleviation. People have been lulled into complacency by decades of low food prices without looking ahead to expected increases in population growth, urbanization, environmental degradation, energy supply disruptions, and demand for non-food crops.

Farmers around the world will be asked to meet the demands created by these factors, even as they may be contending with a degrading agricultural environment that significantly depresses yields in some regions.

Unless much greater effort is devoted to this problem, the world is likely to experience more frequent and intense food crises that increase migration, stimulate conflicts, intensify pandemics, and exacerbate poverty. Solving hunger is both a moral and national security imperative.

This is why Senator Lugar introduced S.384, the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security Act, which was passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and awaits action by the full Senate. The Act creates a Special Coordinator for Global Food Security, who would be in charge of developing a food security strategy; focuses resources for agricultural productivity and rural development; and improves the U.S. emergency response to food crises by creating a separate Rapid Response Fund that can provide food and non-food emergency aid.