As the population of the Earth grows from nearly 7 billion to a projected 9 billion by 2050, meeting the global demand for the essential ingredients of life – food and water – will only be possible with a sustainable supply system that is developed through complex research and analysis. While it is tempting to think of growing food and getting water as relatively straightforward tasks, research on food, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems is moving toward analytical and diagnostic frameworks that help improve food security, protect the environment, manage climate-change risks, alleviate chronic poverty, and promote equity.

This complex approach to assuring that food and water are available is important because agricultural production alone must increase by 70 percent globally (100 percent in developing countries) to meet the anticipated demand. Equally important is increasing the efficiency of food and water distribution and use.

The need for improving our ability to produce food and assuring the availability of clean water comes at a time when human exploitation of land, marine, and freshwater resources have resulted in land and vegetation degradation over vast areas, overuse of marine resources, depletion of aquifers, and unsustainable restructuring of natural landscapes. All of these trends are being aggravated by the impacts of climate change.

The Food and Water research focuses on four themes:

• securing future food and water supply and distribution;
• safeguarding sustainable seafood and ecosystems;
• optimizing multiple uses of terrestrial ecosystem services; and
• managing and sharing scare freshwater resources.

All of these areas will benefit from systems analysis, which combines detailed models of multiple actors in diverse social and environmental conditions.

The goal is to do research that explores which new technologies, investment strategies, policies, and institutional innovations can ensure that there are not only sufficient food and water resources for the planet, but that those resources are developed in such a way that everyone, including those living in poverty, get their share.

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Last updated: 01 Mar 2011