Ending global hunger: Preparing for a career in food security

Food security is one of the fastest growing areas in foreign assistance, and academic studies, from soil science to business, often serve as a foundation for launching careers in the sector. Since commodity prices spiked and set off riots across the globe in 2008, donors have pledged billions of dollars to understand and address the causes of hunger. The 2009 G-8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, focused on food security, and rich nations pledged USD22 billion to fight malnutrition and poverty. On April 22, 2010, the World Bank and several other donors launched a new food security trust fund, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, to help those countries meet their commitments. Seven months later, the U.S. Agency for International Development launched its Bureau of Food Security to support the Obama administration’s Feed the Future initiative, which the agency will also be overseeing as stated in the recently released Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. >> The Long and Winding Road Toward US Aid Reform Increasing the involvement of research institutions has been a common thread in donor-led strategies to create a food-secure world. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others have, for instance, been increasing their investment in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, which runs 15 centers around the globe to do research on food security and has contributed millions of dollars to support African graduate students. In the U.S., lawmakers have proposed the creation of a higher education collaboration for technology, agriculture, research and extension under the Global Food Security Act of 2009 to promote agricultural science in developing nations. Such trends may also impact universities, which have been accused of focusing too much on increasing farm yields rather than improving food security. Selecting a specialization Fields ranging from the hard sciences to the arts can result in a career in the food security sector, according to Manish Raizada, associate professor at the crop science department of Guelph University in Ontario, Canada. The appropriate destinations and disciplines differ from person to person, he said. “A lot of students want to save the world, and they end up being tremendously conflicted because what they love to do is something different. That’s not sustainable,” he said. “Learn how to write, speak and think critically. Figure out what you love and then apply that to international development.” Raizada has seen artistic students get bored with studying agronomy after failing to link their inclinations with their values. “They could do a picture book to help train illiterate farmers on indigenous practices,” he said. “That’s something that’s needed and that an artistic person can do.” Various disciplines have a place under the food security umbrella, Edwin Price, director of the Norman Bourlag Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M University, noted. He said land and genetics are currently the two biggest topics, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Land reform is a very complex problem,” he said. “It takes law, familiarity with tribal land, so social sciences as well as agricultural sciences are needed to solve conflicts. After that, the most fundamental problem is improving crop and animal genetics.” Carolina Torres, a graduate of Agris Mundus, encourages students to explore programs dealing with the empowerment of women. “Lots of universities with programs focusing on women in the developing world have strong elements of food security, water management, etc. because it’s women that are usually in charge of these things, or should be,” said Torres, a political scientist specializing in rural development. Auburn University in Ala., USA, is operationalizing an interdisciplinary approach to food security with the help of Douglas Casson Coutts, a visiting professor on assignment from the U.N. World Food Program. Coutts is teaching an undergraduate course on world hunger and facilitated the establishment of a minor in hunger studies at Auburn. “Nowadays, students still want to do their major, like business or engineering. So, the way I approach the teaching is that no matter what your career plan is, you too can have a role to play in ending world hunger,” Coutts said. “I’ve got students literally from every single college and department you can think of on campus — zoology, journalism, engineers, business plus the traditional liberal arts, political science, international affairs, nutrition and agriculture types.” University partnerships In 2004, Auburn University became the first academic institution to partner with WFP on a student-driven campaign to eradicate hunger, an initiative Coutts is also supporting. “All of the food agencies [are] based in Rome, but our biggest donor is here and in Canada. So, much of the world opinion on [food security] comes from here,” Coutts said. “This is a chance for students to see that food security, world development, hunger and poverty issues are not just the purview of the so-called development experts.” The joint initiative between Auburn University and WFP started as a website and has grown into a six-continent coalition of more than 120 schools from Albania to Zimbabwe. “We decided it needed to go way beyond a website that raises awareness,” said Harriet Giles, director of external relations at Auburn University’s College of Human Sciences. “It needs to look not only at advocacy and fundraising, but what the universities bring to the table that others can’t bring — and that is the generation of knowledge and the application of that knowledge.” Aside from the university’s association with the U.N., Giles also maintains relationships with U.S. government agencies such as the departments of Agriculture and State. As President Barack Obama’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative grows and a generation of bureaucrats nears retirement, she said, universities must focus on preparing students for jobs in the public sector. “From what I am hearing, there are going to be positions within [the U.S. Department of Agriculture] for which they’re going to be needing trained people,” she said. “So, we must ask, where are the feeder universities that will fill these positions, not only in Washington but also around the world?” Leadership skills Giles recommends that students pursue internships in Washington and abroad, particularly in the developing world. “It’s all about the prep you put in as a student,” she said. “We encourage doing all of those things while in college so that you’re marketable when you get out.” Price stressed that opportunities like the one he had as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malaysia are “litmus test[s] of how serious a kid is about development.” The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that a 70 percent increase in food production will be needed to feed a global population of 9 billion by 2050. The bulk of the increase, according to FAO, needs to come from actual crop yields rather than new land being used in food production. As a professor at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University of Technology in Bauchi, Nigeria, Saket Kushwaha expects engineers and agricultural specialists to lead the accomplishment of global food production goals. “Over the past 15 years, knowledge and access to knowledge and technology has seriously increased, which is a transparent outcome of the university system,” said Kushwaha, who worked on a USAID agricultural market development project from 1996 to 2006 with researchers from Michigan State and Purdue universities. “The person who is trained in agricultural technology generally has a passion for agriculture and knows some of the burdens, so they perform better than others.” Universities can provide budding agricultural experts with the necessary leadership skills. Success stories Gregory Vaughan, an agrarian development expert living in Tunja, Colombia, won an award from the Farm Foundation, a nonprofit research institution focused on food and agriculture, for his paper on fostering food security in Africa’s Sahel region. Vaughan, who writes a blog on food security issues, said his education at Agris Mundus inspired the ideas expressed in the essay. Joseph Berchie’s story is a good example of how education can have an impact on job prospects. While studying for his doctoral degree at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in his native Ghana, Berchie obtained a scholarship from the Canadian government to do research at Guelph University. Having returned to Ghana, Berchie is now applying his findings to further study the bambara groundnut, a locally grown legume that can have major implications for food security in Africa and beyond. Bambara, according to Berchie, replenishes nitrogen levels in the soil, a crucial element of sustainable farming, and has the potential to boost the incomes of women, the primary growers of the groundnut. Additionally, the crop needs relatively little water to grow on a continent where many farmers have little or no access to water. For Raizada, Berchie’s professor at Guelph, research on bambara offers a lesson on prudent interventions universities can do for global food security and development. “Joseph taught Canadians about this crop [to be] as important to Africa as soy is to China,” Raizada said. “He was on Canadian national news regularly talking about his work, so it was also great [public relations] for the funding agency, Canada’s equivalent of a department for international affairs.” In the Canadian winter, far from his wife and three children, Berchie occasionally doubted whether his investment of time and effort at Guelph would result in anything significant. “It wasn’t always easy, but I thought there was a reason for me being there,” he said. “My passion is to see people better than they are, especially when it comes to the food that they eat. So, if I can make a little impact, I am happy.” Back home in Ghana, Berchie now marvels at the impact his study has on bambara farmers and, in turn, their huge contribution to his work. “Farmers have to be involved in the research,” he said. “We have to be sensitive to different cultures and genders.” Read food security career advice: - Food Security Academic Programs: A Primer - Hunger Project Seeks Fundraisers - Business Expertise Sought to Fight Malnutrition - Competencies Sought in a World Food Program Job Candidate Read more career advice articles.