Bloomberg created a chart to demonstrate the increasing level of world hunger in the past two decades. Despite greater global wealth, investment in world food aid has declined 37% on an inflation-adjusted basis since 1988, contributing to the rise in the world’s undernourished. This chart shows the need for a long-term investment in agriculture in order to produce enough food to adequately feed the world.

You can view the article and chart here. 

A panel of experts at the British Crop Production Council Congress agreed that agricultural biotechnology will be part of the solution to increasing food production. According to Bayer CropScience’s Julian Little, “To say the only way of producing enough food is through agricultural science and technology is probably not true…but without it there is no chance.”

Read more about the British Crop Production Council Congress here

The Financial Times published an editorial calling for more agriculture and food security aid in the declaration that will be signed at next week’s World Food Summit. They write that more attention must be paid towards the 1 billion chronically undernourished people in the globe, and the challenges to the future of food production, including an increasing population and climate change.

They also write that developing countries “need investment in research on agricultural techniques” in order to significantly increase food production in the developing world.  

Read more of the Financial Times’ editorial here (subscription required)

Leonardo Academy, a nonprofit organization that works to advance sustainability, is recruiting applicants for five vacant seats on their National Sustainable Agriculture Standards Committee. The 58-member committee is in the process of developing a national standard for sustainable agriculture. The Academy is specifically searching for stakeholders in the following categories: Producer, User, Environmentalist and General Interest.

If you would like to apply for Committee membership click here

The latest issue of Rice Today focuses on climate change, and the potential impact extreme weather conditions in Southeast Asia will have on rice production. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is studying ways to better adapt rice crops to monsoons, floods and droughts, and has sent submergence-tolerant and salt-tolerant rice varieties to Myanmar for testing. The IRRI is also hosting an international conference about the future of rice production and climate change in November, 2009.

The issue also plays tributes to the late Nobel Laureate, Dr. Norman Borlaug, and his success in bringing  the “Green Revolution” to India through developing high-yielding crops that help combat hunger and poverty.

You can read more about the latest issue of Rice Today here