By Madeline Poole, Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences

As a teen from the Southside of Chicago, food insecurity was nothing new to me. I saw it every day from homeless men begging on the streets, to young children on the television screen. But, it was not until the summer of my junior year of high school that hunger came alive. That year, I attended the World Food Prize Global Youth Institute in Des Moines, Iowa. During that time, I was exposed to a wide range of information regarding food insecurity. I also got to speak with distinguished individuals who were on the front line of the battle against food insecurity. After being inspired at the World Food Prize, I applied and was accepted into the Borlaug-Ruan International Internship program. Through this program, I was able to travel to India to help alleviate world hunger by interning at the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company. The Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company, Mahyco, strives to produce high quality and affordable seed to smallholder farmers all across the world. Dr. Barwale, the founder of Mahyco, is considered the father of the green revolution in India, and has made a tremendous impact in feeding rural communities through his seed technology.

Arriving in rural India was a complete culture shock. Although it was only 5am, the streets were lively. Women carried large jugs of water on their heads, children played, and men catered to their livestock. I remember the following week when hunger showed its face to me. I was walking down the market place with a lab mate of mine. From the corner of my eye I saw a young boy tattered and weary. You could see his ribcage through his shirt and tears streamed down his face. He grabbed onto my pant leg and murmured, “Sister, please help me. I am hungry.” The feeling I felt in this moment was indescribable. From that moment on, I decided that I was going to dedicate the rest of my life to solving the hunger crisis.

For many people, hunger is an issue too large to combat. Many times, when people think of solutions to hunger, they think of handing out food or social programs. Rarely do people think of individuals like Norman Borlaug, who genetically engineered wheat that saved over a billion lives, or Dr. Barwale, who created hybrid seeds that saved India from a mass famine. If I learned anything from my internship, it was that science is the key to food security. At Mahyco, I worked on isolating bacteria strains from wild plants, screening those bacteria colonies for desirable properties such as nitrogen fixation, and then creating a bio-fertilizer out of the bacteria. For me, it was so rewarding to see that something as simple as rhizobium could enhance rice growth so much.

It is even more important, though, to ensure that this technology is available to smallholder farmers. The majority of farming in developing countries is carried out by smallholders. In order to ensure food security and food availability in developing countries, we must ensure that these farmers can acquire this technology. Another problem I noticed in India was the drought. Massive amounts of farmlands faced devastation simply because there was no water. Technology such as drought-resistant crops could be the key. However, there is one common barrier in all rural areas: education. In many cases, farmers do not trust new technology, regardless of how hungry their village is. On the other hand, they may not use this technology correctly. For example, many farmers in India over-fertilize their plants resulting in destroyed soil fertility and ground-water contamination. Companies like Mahyco are doing a tremendous job educating farmers and training them to properly farm. Cultural barriers are hard to overcome, but education is the solution.

Rural development and tackling food insecurity is something I am extremely passionate about. Through education and technology, hunger and famine could be a thing of the past.