Skip to Main Content

‘How to Feed the World’ offers practical, positive solutions to food insecurity

A new book of essays by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Purdue University helps readers understand how decisions made today by farmers, scientists, policymakers, educators and consumers are vital to ensuring global food security in coming decades.

The book “How to Feed the World,” is now available from Island Press. It includes 12 chapters examining key challenges and opportunities in the global food system. Topics are population growth, water scarcity, land use, climate change, technology adoption, competing food systems, international trade, food waste and loss, health, social license to operate, communication and achieving equal access to food.

“By 2050, we will have 10 billion mouths to feed in a world profoundly altered by environmental change,” said co-editor Jessica Eise, Ross Fellow in the Brian Lamb School of Communication. “How we meet this challenge will be the difference between food abundance and shortage, environmental preservation or destruction, and even life and death.”

Plain-language essays offer practical, positive solutions ranging from precision agriculture and nanotechnology to making healthy choices at the grocery store.

“We have the tools and ingenuity needed to achieve global food security,” says Ken Foster, professor of agricultural economics and co-editor of the book. “But the pursuit of a secure future begins with a clear understanding of the challenges facing our food system today.”

In addition to Eise and Foster, other Purdue contributors are Michael Boehlje, Otto Doering, Michael Gunderson, Thomas Hertel, Rhonda Phillips, Gerald Shively, Brigitte Waldorf, Nicole Olynk Widmar and Steven Wu, all from the Department of Agricultural Economics; Laura Bowling, agronomy; Keith Cherkauer, agricultural and biological engineering; Jeff Dukes, Purdue Climate Change Research Center; and Ariana Torres, horticulture and landscape architecture and agricultural economics.

To learn more about the book, including ordering information, go to http://islandpress.org/book/how-to-feed-the-world.

Featured Stories

Dog outdoors drinking water
Keeping your pets safe during the dog days of summer

As temperatures and humidity rise across the U.S., Candace Croney, director of the Center for...

Read More
Eastern hellbender salamanders feeding on bloodworms in their raceway at the Purdue Hellbender the Hellbender lab.
Metazoa Beer to Benefit Help the Hellbender Lab

Metazoa Brewing Company and the Indiana Lakes Management Society have teamed up to collaborate on...

Read More
Sonling Fei in front of digital trees
Digital forestry can help mitigate and prevent wildfires

The National Interagency Fire Center reports that, as of this writing, 19,444 fires have burned...

Read More
tomas hook next to boat
What you can do this summer to reduce the spread of aquatic invasive species

In 2020, an alligator was captured in a lagoon of Chicago’s Humbolt Park. The reptile out...

Read More
Researcher uses pipette on parsley plant
Researchers examine nanotechnological methods for improving agriculture

Nanoscale particles could potentially help address agricultural and environmental sustainability...

Read More
Fairgoers ride a tractor, sponsored by the Indiana Soybean Alliance, and browse food tents during the 2023 Indiana State Fair. (Purdue Agricultural Communications photo)
Purdue Extension to present engaging art and nature demonstrations at Indiana State Fair

The Indiana State Fair kicks off Aug. 2 and highlights the theme “The Art & Nature of...

Read More
To Top