Today’s challenge: Feeding the world

This Thanksgiving weekend, we reflect that we live among some of the world's most bountiful crop harvests and most productive livestock and poultry operations. We truly live in the heartland.

Given our fortunate position in the agricultural world, it's easy to forget that nearly 900 million people worldwide do not have access to enough nutritious, safe food. It's even easier to forget, although more shocking, that over 50 million people in nearly 18 million households in the United States were food insecure, according to 2011 statistics.

By 2050, world population likely will reach 9.6 billion people. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, food production must increase by at least 70 percent to feed this staggering growth in population.

This future challenge is daunting. We must also remember that food security is not just about quantity. Food must be nutritious to make a difference in productive, healthy lives. Poor nutrition in a child's first thousand days of life can cause lifelong stunting, physically and mentally. Malnutrition also disproportionately affects women. All told, 2 billion people, including nearly 200 million children under 5, suffer from inadequate nutrition.

When that foundation of an adequate, nutritious food supply is lacking, it limits nations' economic growth potential and creates conditions for social and political unrest. This is a threat not only for the countries involved, but in this interconnected world, to our way of life as Americans.

The U.S. Agency for International Development is the lead agency for Feed the Future, a global hunger and food security initiative. This year, bills before Congress would support Feed the Future well beyond the present administration. They are deserving of our strong support. The initiative works to help farmers produce more food and get it to market. It supports research and development to improve both sustainable production and access to nutritious food.

Why are these issues so important to us in the heartland? First, it is ethically and morally the right thing to do. Second, the future of a stable America and its people will be tied to both local and world food resources. Finally, food production will be good for the economy, especially for major food-producing states.

To support such efforts, we must expand agricultural research and development to look for new solutions for improved, sustainable production. This will require more public investment at the land-grant universities, which traditionally have been the powerhouses of agricultural innovation. It also will require innovative partnering between the public and private sectors to help unlock answers to the biological processes needed to produce larger quantities of food and more nutritious food.

Stakeholders must encourage state and federal governments to create policies that support sustainability and preservation of our environment while not limiting production.

Young people can shape the world of the future by helping feed it. We must encourage young people to enter fields of animal science, agronomy, molecular biology, genetics and the many other disciplines that support and improve food production.

Finally, what better time than Thanksgiving to reflect, as citizens, on how we can reduce food waste and help our neighbors by contributing to local food pantries.

When I was a boy, I remember watching the nighttime sky as Sputnik passed overhead. I remember our leaders proclaiming the real scientific challenge was a noble cause to win the space race and go to the moon. Today our scientific challenge is to feed a world with limited resources and a growing population. The cause is just as noble and certainly imperative to ensure a better world for ourselves and future generations.

' Max Rothschild is a Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and Life Sciences and holder of the Ensminger Chair of International Animal Agriculture at Iowa State University. Comments: mfrothsc@iastate.edu or (515) 294-6202.