Feed the Future

The President's Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative, titled "Feed the Future (FTF)", has the overarching goal of sustainably reducing global poverty and hunger (www.feedthefuture.gov). Providing sufficient food to the world's growing population will require a 70 percent increase in agricultural production by 2050 (Bruinsma 2009). To meet this food security challenge under constraints of limited agricultural land availability and increased climatic variability, the world will need to support and develop scientific and technological innovations that increase agricultural productivity in an environmentally sound manner while improving the availability of nutritious foods. The food price spikes of 2006-2008 and that are resurfacing today underscore the fragility of global food security, with recent estimates that nearly a billion people are food insecure (Shapouri 2010), affecting families in the United States and around the world. While the causes were many, the underlying challenges are clear: the world cannot achieve the Millennium Development Goals (http: //www.un.org/millenniumgoals/) relating to hunger, poverty, health, gender and the environment when the growth of agricultural productivity and income stagnates or is otherwise insufficient. The global research portfolio, presented here, serves as an integral strategy within the broader Feed the Future Initiative. The FTF Initiative includes targeted investments in Focus Countries to enhance agricultural productivity, to expand markets and trade, and to increase the economic resilience of vulnerable rural communities in addition to supporting a multifaceted approach to nutrition. The FTF Initiative will make complementary investments in regional programs where food security issues go beyond national boundaries, multilateral mechanisms for large-scale investments such as infrastructure, and strategic partnerships with countries that serve as regional anchors for food security. Research investments described in this strategy will focus on international public goods, which will benefit Focus Country producers and consumers as well as those in neighboring countries. International public goods research will be linked to investments in Focus Countries in local adaptive research, institutional and human capacity building and strengthening of extension services. These country-level investments are central to the successful utilization of the outputs of research. Operational dimensions and linkages between the global research portfolio and national level programs will need to be worked out in each country in ways that fully reflect the country-led approach.