June 2009

The rise in world commodity prices and the food riots of last year have shown how food insecurity can threaten vulnerable populations, and put economic and international stability at risk. On June 29, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack discussed his efforts, in partnership with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to develop a new U.S. food security strategy, which will include boosting food production in the developing world, improving lesser developed countries' market access, and measures to reduce hunger inside the U.S. borders.

For more than forty years, humankind has had the knowledge, tools, and resources to end chronic hunger worldwide. Yet at the start of the twenty-first century, 25,000 people a day – and nearly six million children a year -- die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases. Malnutrition kills more Africans than AIDS and malaria combined. In this compelling investigative narrative, Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman, award-winning writers on Africa, development, and agriculture, explain through vivid human stories how the agricultural revolutions that transformed Asia and South America stopped short in Africa. They argue passionately and convincingly that this generation is the one that could finally end the scourge that has haunted the human race since its beginning.