{"id":9,"date":"2025-10-20T12:15:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T16:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/?p=9"},"modified":"2026-02-04T12:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T17:58:13","slug":"feed-a-hungry-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/feed-a-hungry-world\/","title":{"rendered":"How to feed a hungry world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How to feed a hungry world<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Clark researchers stand at the center of efforts to sustain the planet\u2019s strained food and water resources<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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by Meredith Woodward King<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With 673 million people starving and 2.3 billion experiencing food insecurity, U.N. Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres issued an urgent message at a recent United Nations food summit in Ethiopia. \u201cThe future of food is the future of humanity,\u201d he said, imploring the world to work faster to develop food systems that are \u201cinclusive, sustainable, equitable, resilient, and rooted in human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Marshall
Marshall Fredericksen, M.S.-ES&P \u201926 works a field in Ethiopia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As Guterres spoke in Addis Ababa, Marshall Fredericksen, M.S.-ES&P \u201926, was wrapping up nearly three months of visiting and conducting interviews at 90 farms in the country\u2019s Wollo zone, which has experienced cycles of drought, conflict, and famine over the decades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government encourages farmers to plant a single variety of each crop for export. But many adhere to a centuries-old practice of sowing and harvesting multiple species and varieties of grains together to produce a steady, nutrient-rich source of food for their families. The mixtures commonly include wheat and barley, field peas and fava beans, or several sorghum varieties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFarmers notice that mixing them provides an added benefit compared to planting them individually as monocrops,\u201d says Fredericksen, whose research is part of an international project with Professor Morgan Ruelle of Clark\u2019s Department of Sustainability and Social Justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, the researchers believe the farmers\u2019 traditional practice of growing grain mixtures could offer a climate-resilient solution to Africa\u2019s food insecurity. They are partnering with Professor Zemede Asfaw, known as the father of Ethiopian ethnobotany, and Ph.D. students at Addis Ababa University, as well as researchers and practitioners with the New York Botanical Garden, Lehman College, and Wollo University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe varieties compensate for each other depending on the climate and weather conditions in a particular year,\u201d Ruelle says. \u201cIf it\u2019s really dry one season, the varieties that do better under dry conditions take over, and if it\u2019s really wet, others become dominant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Archaeological evidence suggests that people in northern Africa and Eurasia have been cultivating grain mixtures for thousands of years. In Ethiopia, farmers use mixtures for injera<\/em>, a staple bread, as well as many other traditional foods and beverages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn some cases, the farmers are planting five to seven different varieties of two different species in a single field,\u201d Ruelle says. \u201cThey\u2019re planted together, harvested together, used together, saved together, and then planted again the next year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research team has now expanded its project to Kenya, where farmers have begun growing mixtures of maize and sorghum for breakfast and lunch programs in public schools. The project connects Ethiopia\u2019s ethnobotanists, agronomists, and nutritionists with Kenya\u2019s Cereal Growers Association, which will be traveling to speak with farmers in Wollo this October. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next fall, The Rockefeller Foundation will support two fellows from as master\u2019s students in Clark\u2019s Sustainable Food Systems and\/or Environmental Science and Policy programs. They will work with Ruelle to investigate the outcomes of the grain mixtures project for farmers and students in Kenya\u2019s schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI\u2019m really interested in solutions that build on what farmers already know how to do,\u201d Ruelle says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruelle and Fredericksen are just two of the researchers affiliated with Clark\u2019s new School of Climate, Environment, and Society who are rising to Guterres\u2019 challenge to address hunger and food insecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Africa to Asia to the Americas, Clark faculty and staff are partnering with communities and governments seeking to improve agricultural practices and food systems. They are learning from Indigenous communities\u2019 age-old practices, as well as sharing geospatial technology (see GIS story, page 38). And they are studying beneficial microbes and insects that could help farmers promote soil and plant health to increase crop yields\u2014sustainably. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Not enough hands, rather than too many mouths\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Food insecurity commonly\u2014and mistakenly\u2014has become linked to population growth, according to Geography Professor Gustavo Oliveira.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Farmer in Ethiopia’s Wollo zone have long grown nutrient-rich, drought-tolerant mixtures of grains. Photo courtesy of Marshall Fredericksen M.S.-ES&P \u201926.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople still rely on 20th-century thinking about overpopulation and the need to increase food production,\u201d says Oliveira, an expert in global agro-industrial trade and food-supply issues. \u201cBut that way of thinking doesn\u2019t accurately reflect our current reality, which is about urbanization, industrialization, and market forces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the world\u2014and especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America\u2014foreign investors have snatched up millions of acres of farmland in a \u201cglobal land grab\u201d since 2010, Oliveira points out. The land has been turned over to expansive farm operations, resource extraction, energy production, and development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Led by growth in Africa, the global population is expected to increase from 8.2 billion people in 2024 to as many as 10.4 billion in the mid-2080s, then start to decline, according to the United Nations. But today, much of the world\u2014including traditional economic powerhouses like China, Brazil, the United States, Germany, and Japan\u2014already is seeing lower fertility rates, aging populations, and slower or decreasing growth rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, young people are bypassing village life and farming for what they perceive as more promising, lucrative work in the city, according to Oliveira. The U.N. projects that by 2050, almost seven in 10 people across the globe will be urban residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot enough hands, rather than too many mouths, is the bigger challenge to food security in the future,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oliveira has experienced these demographic changes firsthand. He and his wife, a professor at Amherst College, have traveled back to her native China to help her elderly parents transplant rice. No one else is available to work the farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Food and water are deeply interconnected\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

China has become the world\u2019s biggest pork consumer and producer, with rippling effects. To feed its hogs, many of which are confined to high-rise factories, China imports 80 percent of Brazil\u2019s soybean crops. Having passed the U.S. as No. 1 soybean grower, Brazil has cleared at least 11 percent of the 789,000-square-mile Cerrado, the most biologically rich savanna in the world, to plant 52.9 million acres of commercially farmed monoculture crops. As part of a NASA-funded project, Oliveira and fellow Clark Geography Professor Robert \u201cGil\u201d Pontius are modeling future competing scenarios of this expansion, given climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deemed a significant carbon sink due to extensive plant root systems, the Cerrado harbors the earth\u2019s second-largest underground water reservoir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"PH.D.
PH.D. student Antonio Fonseca studies soybean and cotton irrigation methods in Brazil\u2019s Cerrado savanna. Photo courtesy of Gustavo Oliveira<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yet, the area is threatened by agricultural deforestation and declining water tables, made worse by climate change. In addition to dealing with the impacts of planting water-intensive soybeans and cotton\u2014the latter of which China imports for its busy textile mills\u2014the region has seen a 12 percent decrease in rainfall since 1980. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the world, agriculture uses 70 percent of the world\u2019s freshwater resources, and nearly 2.2 billion people lack safe drinking water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFood and water are deeply interconnected,\u201d Oliveira concurs. \u201cWe are facing more water shortages than land scarcity. And with climate change, we have increased reliance upon irrigation to produce food, but we also have reduced capacity to sustain that irrigation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a Catch-22 that comes down particularly forcefully in industrial food systems,\u201d he adds, \u201cwhich are chemical- and capital-intensive and drive further climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Oliveria, other Clark faculty and student researchers are investigating the issue of water scarcity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Central Mexico, a team led by Professor Tim Downs of the Department of Sustainability and Social Justice is focusing on how climate change impacts water, agriculture, and health\u2014affecting 28 million people in 200 communities in and around Mexico City\u2014and how to anticipate and mitigate those impacts. Funded by an NSF grant, the Clark team, which includes both undergraduate and graduate students, has worked closely with three local communities, academics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the Mexico City government. Geography Ph.D. student Kwabena Antwi, spent a month working alongside farmers, and will continue his fieldwork in 2026 to understand how climate change affects agriculture. Professor Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger and a team of graduate students are co-creating an online atlas so that communities can better visualize climate impacts and ways to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Biology
Biology Professor Chandra Jack leads plant studies in Clark\u2019s EPIC lab.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A greenhouse for greener solutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Back in the United States, two Clark biologists\u2014professors Chandra Jack and Kaitlyn Mathis\u2014are conducting research that has implications for advancing sustainable farming, food security, and conservation practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAgricultural intensification indirectly pushes climate change,\u201d Mathis explains. \u201cBy managing agriculture more sustainably, we could reduce the impacts of climate change.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two professors and their students run controlled experiments in Clark\u2019s greenhouse, the Experimental Plant Investigation Center (EPIC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack studies how microbe interactions affect plant traits\u2014research that could help lead to the development of more sustainable, less invasive ways to grow food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are interested in how microbes in the soil could combat some of the stress that plants are facing due to climate change,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microbes\u2014including bacteria, fungi, and viruses\u2014help break down organic matter, fix nitrogen, improve roots, ward off pests and pathogens, and mitigate environmental stressors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one experiment, Jack\u2019s research team inoculated sterilized soil with microbes to grow Ryan soft white spring wheat, which has great potential as a high-yield cereal crop in areas with variable rainfall. The researchers compared that sample with wheat grown in \u201cregular,\u201d nutrient-rich soil from fields in Washington state, where Jack has worked with farmers seeking to reduce their reliance on synthetic fertilizers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under simulated drought conditions in Clark\u2019s greenhouse, the wheat planted in the microbe-inoculated soil grew taller, compared to those in the regular soil from Washington, according to Jack, whose research is funded by the NSF and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With her Washington State University collaborators, she is investigating the differences in microbial biodiversity found in wheat planted in long-tended agricultural sites versus natural prairie areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to know if the microbes that we find function differently,\u201d Jack explains. \u201cPrairies haven\u2019t been disturbed much, whereas agricultural areas have faced constant displacement, fertilizers, and pesticides. We\u2019re thinking about what makes a healthy soil and what are the implications for food production.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can ants help our farmers?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Mathis and her students are researching how ants and other beneficial insects can be used by farmers to produce food crops without heavy use of pesticides. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deploying ants as agricultural \u201cworkers\u201d goes back centuries, according to Mathis. In 304 A.D., Chinese farmers first transported nests of green tree ants to protect citrus crops, one of the oldest recorded biological controls to ward off pests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Mathis has studied the interactions between Azteca ants, phorid flies, and beetles in Southern Mexico\u2019s coffee plantations, and how native Argentine ants protect Asian citrus psyllid pests that threaten California\u2019s $2 billion citrus industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Can ants help us find healthy, Eco-friendly ways to farm?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, she is mentoring Joseph Nelsen, a Ph.D. candidate, and undergraduate students who are studying how ants interact with other insects on zucchini and cucumber plants containing extrafloral nectaries\u2014tiny \u201cbowls\u201d found on the underside or base of leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInformation gained from studies like mine will build on our understanding of the plant-protecting activities that abundant omnivorous insects like ants provide,\u201d Nelsen says, \u201cwhich may be a useful tool for farmers dedicated to sustainably growing food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pests like caterpillars, striped cucumber beetles, and aphids flourish near the extrafloral nectaries, drinking the nectar and eating the plants, Mathis says. But the nectaries also attract beneficial insects like ants and parasitoid wasps, which typically consume or drive away the pests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cManaging these smaller agricultural ecosystems to promote these beneficial predator insects could reduce the amounts of pesticides that farmers need to use,\u201d Mathis says. \u201cThat would be good for everybody. It\u2019s good for farmers, who wouldn\u2019t have that exposure. It\u2019s good for consumers who eat the produce. And it\u2019s good for the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m trying to make my own path\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Like Nelsen, Marshall Fredericksen also hopes to encourage more sustainable agricultural practices. Besides his research in Ethiopia, he will draw from an intimate knowledge of farming in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fredericksen was raised in Tanzania, where his mother grew up in a farming family. His father, Michael Frederickson, M.S. \u201998, was born in Massachusetts and earned his master\u2019s degree from Clark\u2019s international development program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The elder Fredericksen was a student of the late Dick Ford, the Clark professor whose pioneering Participatory Rural Appraisal approach to community development emphasized collaboration and partnership. Traveling throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, Michael worked with local farmers on agricultural techniques to yield more robust harvests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have many childhood memories of holding a seedling while we drove to visit farmers who would learn planting and grafting techniques from my father,\u201d Fredericksen says. \u201cHe would lead focus groups with farmers, village leaders, and chiefs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, the younger Fredericksen has also become interested in agriculture, noting that everything starts from the ground up\u2014with the soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to make my own path,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a firm believer that diversification is the agroecological approach that can best improve soil health and optimize farm yields.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, he still learns from the farmers in his family, many of whom \u201cstruggle with the variability of weather and climate. It\u2019s something that hits home for me, when I speak with the elders and realize that climate variability has been an issue the past five, 10, 15 years, and it\u2019s slowly becoming more intensified, uncontrollable, and unpredictable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on his experiences in Tanzania and America, Fredericksen hopes to continue working in Africa, promoting the best practices of agroecology, international development, and climate science to combat hunger and food insecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think I can be a big asset working in this part of the world,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, \u201cI would be doing myself and the rest of my family a disservice if I didn\u2019t take a stance on what I believe in and contributed to what I think is important.\u201d\u2002\u25cf
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