By Daniel O’Neill Vogwill, Student, Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences
As hundreds of students gathered in Des Moines, Iowa for the World Food Prize Global Youth Institute, we were exposed to the many complexities of food insecurity. One night we attended the Oxfam Hunger Banquet and as we walked into the banquet, we were divided into hypothetical socioeconomic classes. I was placed in the lower class and was only allowed to eat rice and water. This perspective into the lives of the various classes alluded to the complexities of poverty on a global scale. As a teen in Chicago, I am sheltered from the raw aspects of widespread global hunger. But the microcosm of society I experienced at the Oxfam Hunger Banquet offered a small glance into the hardships food insecurity causes.
The World Food Prize was founded by Dr. Norman Borlaug, whose work in the Green Revolution has been credited with saving over a billion lives. The World Food Prize is currently shaping the next generation of Borlaug Scholars through their laureate program, youth events, and internships. The worldly experience it provides for students not only shapes the agricultural field itself but also the lives of those students. The Norman Borlaug Ruan International Internship offers the chance for students to explore food insecurities on a global scale, get hands on experience in a field of research, and spend eight to ten weeks in another country. Dr. Norman Borlaug once said, “Civilization as it is known today could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply.” His work has helped billions in the past; but as we turn the corner to 2050, we will need to feed more people with less space.
As a participant in the World Food Prize and student at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, I have been exposed to solutions that explore ways we can solve food insecurity. I researched sustainable agriculture in Singapore for my World Food Prize paper and with the knowledge and research I acquired, I proposed the use of an energy, water, cost, and space efficient vertical farming system called Sky Greens vertical farms. This system has allowed for Singapore’s dependence on other countries for food imports to decrease by 7 percent in four years. The tiny island nation could be a platform for solving food insecurity as Singapore moves onward and upward with new technological advances that combine agriculture with innovation.
Many of my research projects at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences have focused on reducing food insecurity around the globe by pairing technological innovations with agricultural practices. As an urban student in the agricultural field, you can feel like a fish out of water. Yet this diverse perspective and unique background could be what agricultural industries need.
To fix an enormous challenge like this, there are three key factors that need to be addressed. First, technological advances have to be widespread, affordable, and address issues most commonly found by agriculturalists. Second, a great knowledge of agriculture is crucial for a sustainable agricultural system. Public disconnect and a lack of agriculturally literate people projects stereotypes and misconceptions on a whole industry. Finally, by educating farmers on ways to use land more efficiently and implementing new technologies, they can help cut back on food waste and adapt to the changing times. Educating both farmers and the general public on agriculture and food insecurity will help increase public interest and line up the next generation of hunger fighters.
Overall, precision agriculture, agricultural education, and global support will be key in eradicating famine and hunger and stabilizing the issue of global food insecurity as we estimate having nine billion people by the year 2050. Let us be the generation that changes the path of history and makes food insecurity simply vanish.