Dr. Cary Fowler, an American agriculturalist who recently served as the U.S. Special Envoy for Global Food Security discusses how feeding a growing global population by 2050 will depend on getting the fundamentals right: maintaining fertile soils, ensuring reliable water supplies, and developing productive crops adapted to a changing climate. Climate- and biodiversity-informed agricultural research and development also have a major role to play.
Current trends are troubling, as more than 700 million people face food insecurity. Despite these challenges, Fowler will explain how solutions are within reach. We already possess much of the knowledge and technology needed to avert a future defined by widespread hunger.
An example of such forward-thinking, long-term planning is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, an international effort led by Fowler to safeguard crop diversity for future generations. This talk showcases the facility—which contains more than 1 million crop varieties—and explains how it operates as a biological foundation for global food security.
Fowler is the founder and president of the Food Security Leadership Council, which is dedicated to strengthening the US role in global efforts to address the scourge of hunger. Among his many awards and honors, he received the 2024 World Food Prize along with Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin in recognition for their vital contributions to global crop biodiversity conservation.
