Boosting Food Security Through Science and Innovation

This week marks the second annual Feed the Future Week. As America’s initiative to combat global hunger, Feed the Future is making an impact in some of the world’s most vulnerable places.

Feed the Future brings partners together to help people harness the power of agriculture to jumpstart their local economies and lift themselves out of poverty. Today, as the world faces unprecedented need, we are working to build resilient communities and break the cycle of hunger and poverty that keeps people in crisis. We work hand in hand with countries as they invest in their own development.

By equipping people with the tools to feed themselves and their families over the long term, Feed the Future and our partners are tackling the root causes of hunger and poverty and bolstering people’s ability to meet future challenges. Together, we have and can continue to make progress against hunger and poverty so families around the world have the opportunity to build a healthy, secure future.

Throughout the week, we’ll be highlighting the progress Feed the Future has achieved and the integral contributions of our partners, as well as the ongoing need for greater food security and nutrition around the world.

Research in agriculture is one of the most effective of all public investments in driving down poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Feed the Future invests in research that is routinely underfunded and yet critical to the future of developing country agriculture as well as America’s. Between 2011 and 2016, Feed the Future and our research and university partners have developed and deployed over 900 innovations to meet the dynamic and sometimes unforeseen changes that impact food security.

Check out the stories from our partners below to learn more about how innovative research and technologies are helping farmers and food producers boost agricultural production and face challenges such as crop pests and diseases.

• K-State, PepsiCo team up on affordable nutrition, The Mercury
• How new apricot research can help farmers and reduce poverty in Tajikistan, UC Davis
• Fighting Risk to Feed the Future, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Markets Access
• Beyond quotas: Ensuring women’s access to irrigation in the household, IFPRI
• World Water Week: Experimental games spark community cooperation on groundwater in India, IFPRI
• There’s an App for That: The Role of Youth in Driving New Technologies in Agriculture, RTI International
• Radio Communications Empower Smallholders to Combat the Fall Armyworm, USAID Ghana
• How Technology is Boosting Incomes for Bangladesh’s Farmers, USAID Bangladesh