How to overcome hunger caused by climate change? Blinken talked about US programs to increase yields

The US government is working with farmers to create a program that would feed more and more people in a worsening climate, the US secretary of state said. Anthony Blinken during the COP 28 climate conference held on December 1 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

According to statistics, 700 million people around the world are chronically malnourished, half of them facing acute food shortages, Blinken said.

“This crisis is exacerbated by climate warming and extreme weather events. Just last year we experienced stunning heat waves in North America, Europe and Asia; raging forest fires in Southern Europe and North Africa; catastrophic floods in South Asia. There are real people behind these food security statistics,” said Anthony Blinken at a panel titled “Transforming Food Systems in a Changing Climate.”

To overcome hunger, the United States has allocated more than $17 billion in aid over the past three years, the Secretary of State said. Half of these funds are for the budget of the World Food Program.

“Population growth means that global demand for food is likely to increase by around 50% by 2050. The worsening climate crisis means that crop yields could drop by 30% over the same period. So count: we will feed more and more people on the planet, and it will become more and more difficult to grow food,” said the diplomat.

According to Blinken, the US government is working with farmers to create a program that would allow to produce food more efficiently and at lower costs in the face of climate change.

“Our goal is to enable farmers, farm owners, to sustainably produce higher yields of more nutritious crops at lower costs, using less land and producing fewer emissions. This is our vision,” said Blinken.

According to the US Secretary of State, earlier this year the US, together with the countries of the African Union and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, launched the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) program. This program defines two main elements of food production – soil and seeds, accordingly investments under this program are concentrated around these elements.

“The program, which is part of the broader “Feed the Future” initiative, works in two main directions. First, investing underground – mapping, conserving, building healthy soils that produce healthy food. And secondly, investment above ground – VACS helps to identify under-invested but nutrient-rich and climate-resilient crops, breed their best varieties, and then harvest them and ship them around the world. This is food not only for survival, but also for prosperity,” said the US Secretary of State, adding that in this way the US is trying to achieve self-sufficiency in providing food to its population.

Climate conference in Dubai COP28 started in Dubai on November 30 and will last until December 12. At the conference, representatives of about 200 countries are looking for ways to overcome the climate crisis and discuss the possibility of abandoning fossil fuels. Ukraine also participates in this conference.

According to Ukrainian media, the goal of the Ukrainian delegation at COP28 is to show the scale of environmental damage from the war and to propose ways to prevent ecocide. The exposition of the Ukrainian pavilion is divided into three blocks: “Kakhovka”, “Consequences” and “Recovery”.