Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Stanford Health Policy
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Forum on Contemporary Europe
Program on Energy and Sustainable Development
Program on Food Security and the Environment
Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education
Inter-University Center for Japanese Language StudiesOctober 16th, 2009
Bill Gates refers to FSE study in keynote speech at the World Food Prize Symposium
In the NewsIn one of his first major speeches on agriculture, Gates cited a FSE study that predicted that farmers in southern Africa will lose 25 percent of their corn productivity if they continue growing the same varieties they do now. The study, Prioritizing Climate Change Adaptation Needs for Food Security in 2030, came out in Science in February 2008 and examines crop adaptation strategies for climate change and investment priorities. Read more »
October 9th, 2009
A Tribute to Ron Raikes
On September 5th, Ron Raikes was tragically killed in a farm accident. Ron was a stellar Nebraska farmer, an outstanding state senator, a renowned educator, and a good friend of FSE. During the winter quarter of 2008/9, he (and his brother Jeff of the Gates Foundation) spoke to the members of our world food economy class about farming and being a farmer in Nebraska. Ross Feehan was an undergraduate member of that class who went on to become a summer intern on the Raikes farm. Ross's essay on his experiences is presented here as a tribute to Ron. Read more »
September 8th, 2009
Half of the fish consumed globally is now raised on farms
Aquaculture now accounts for half of the fish consumed globally, according to a recent study released by Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment. The more than a decade-long trend toward fish farming is straining the resources of some wild fish species, which are harvested to feed the farmed varieties. "The huge expansion is being driven by demand," said lead author Rosamond Naylor, a professor of environmental Earth system science and director of the Program on Food Security and the Environment. 
Read more »
August 18th, 2009
Meeting addresses need for adapting crops to new climate conditions
A recent 3 day meeting of international climate and crop experts at Stanford University focused on ways to adapt agriculture to a warmer world. A summary report from the meeting identifies several priorities for research and investment in the coming years.
June 29th, 2009
Balancing act in global fertilizer use: Science report
A new report in the journal Science, co-authored by FSE scholars, examines the delicate balancing act between too much and two little fertilizer use.
Read more »
May 20th, 2009
McGill University bestows honorary degree on Walter Falcon for exemplary scholarship
Professor Walter Falcon, Deputy Director of the Program on Food Security and the Environment, former director of FSI, and Helen Farnsworth Professor of International Agricultural Policy, Emeritus has been recognized with an honorary degree from McGill University for his research aimed at reducing world hunger and enhancing global food security. Read more »
May 7th, 2009
Bioelectricity promises more 'miles per acre' than ethanol, Science study finds
Researchers writing in the May 7th edition of the journal Science, including FSE's David Lobell, find that converting biomass to electricity is a more efficient way to power cars than converting it to ethanol. Read more »
April 13th, 2009
Martinelli to join FSE as Visiting Fellow
Luiz Martinelli, a biogeochemist at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil, will join FSE as a Cargill Fellow in winter 2009/10. Dr. Martinelli's research into the ecology and geochemistry of the Amazon Basin has earned him recognition as one of Brazil's leading scientists in his field. In addition to publishing numerous papers in scientific journals, Dr. Martinelli has worked with both the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program and the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment. He will be a welcome addition to the FSE team.
February 18th, 2009
Biofuels boom could fuel rainforest destruction, reports FSE researcher Holly Gibbs
In the NewsAccording to new research, farmers across the tropics might raze forests to plant biofuel crops, which could contribute to, not slow, the process of climate change. Read more »
February 13th, 2009
The merits of funding graduate students
FSE and IPER graduate student Rodrigo Pizzaro demonstrates why its nice to fund graduate students in this Stanford Giving profile. 
Read more »
January 8th, 2009
Half the world's population faces major food crisis by 2100, Science study finds
In the News: Stanford Report on January 8, 2009A new study by FSE Director Rosamond Naylor and David Battisti from the University of Washington estimates that rising temperatures will create food shortages for half the world's population by 2100. The study, which appeared in the Jan. 9 issue of Science magazine, has been widely covered in major international news outlets.
Read more »
January 7th, 2009
FSE welcomes Wolfram Schlenker as Cargill Visiting Fellow
FSE is pleased to welcome Wolfram Schlenker as the first Cargill Visiting Fellow. Schlenker, an assistant professor of economics at Columbia, studies the economics of climate change and its impacts on agriculture, among other topics. His recent publications have appeared in Nature, Climatic Change, and Environmental and Resource Economics.
October 23rd, 2008
Scholars and scientists pursue fieldwork at Jasper Ridge
In the News: Stanford Report on October 22, 2008Christopher Field, FSI senior fellow and faculty director of the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, is featured in a Stanford Report article on the preserve. FSE Director Rosamond Naylor and FSE Deputy Director Walter Falcon are also mentioned. Read more »
October 15th, 2008
FSE director Naylor participates in World Food Prize symposium
FSE Director Rosamond Naylor is a participant in this week's World Food Prize festivities in Des Moines, Iowa. She is participating in one of the Norman Borlaug Dialogues entitled "Biodiversity and Agricultural Security". Read more »
September 23rd, 2008
Program on Global Justice: Just supply chains, liberation technology, and human rights
FSI Stanford, CDDRL, PGJ, FSE NewsOne of Stanford's many remarkable attractions is the Rodin sculpture garden. And perhaps the most extraordinary Rodin sculpture is his Gates of Hell, inspired by Dante's Inferno. In his Divine Comedy, Dante tells us that the inscription over the Gates of Hell is "abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Read more »
September 22nd, 2008
Program on Food Security and the Environment: A climate ripe for high food prices?
The recent run-up in global food prices is wreaking well-documented havoc throughout the developing world. As prices for major food staples have doubled or tripled over the past 12-18 months, food riots have broken out in more than a dozen countries, and the president of the World Bank has suggested that the rise in food prices will push 100 million people below the poverty line, undoing decades of economic growth almost overnight. FSE's Peter Timmer calculates that high rice prices alone could cause the premature death of 10 million people in Asia. It is difficult to imagine an issue of more pressing global importance today.
Read more »
September 18th, 2008
Without public investment, the food crisis will only get worse, Naylor, Falcon say in Boston Review
Op-ed: Boston Review on October 1, 2008FSE director Rosamond Naylor and deputy director Walter Falcon discuss the food crisis in a lead article in the September/October 2008 issue of Boston Review. The food system is indeed global, Naylor and Falcon say, yet the principal actors are national governments, not international agencies. The latter can help with solutions, but fundamental improvements require more enlightened national policies. 
Read more »
June 17th, 2008
FSE receives $3 million from Cargill to support visiting fellows, program activities
FSE is very happy to announce a five-year, $3 million donation from Cargill in support of a visiting fellows program and other program activities. "Cargill's investment will provide critical seed-funding for the innovative solution-based research and teaching going on at FSE," said Rosamond Naylor, FSE director and William Wrigley Senior Fellow at Stanford. "It will jump-start a visiting fellows program that will bring to Stanford experts working in key FSE research areas from the United States and abroad, and will help establish an infrastructure to support our research team."
May 30th, 2008
FSE featured in Stanford Report
The Program on Food Security and the Environment was featured in a short profile in the Stanford Report. Read more »
May 21st, 2008
Fuel, food at odds in global food crisis, say FSE directors Naylor and Falcon
Op-ed: San Francisco Chronicle on May 18, 2008Energy self-sufficiency at home can mean widespread starvation abroad, FSE director Roz Naylor and deputy director Wally Falcon write in a May 18 San Francisco Chronicle op-ed. Read more »
May 20th, 2008
Is it Africa's turn? FSI scholars look at progress in the world's poorest region
CDDRL, FSI Stanford, FSE, PGJ NewsBy the turn of this century, sub-Saharan Africa had experienced 25 years of economic and political disaster. In the May/June 2008 issue of Boston Review, economist Edward Miguel tracks comparably hopeful economic trends throughout sub-Saharan Africa and suggests that we may be seeing a turnaround. Nine experts, including Rosamond Naylor and Jeremy Weinstein, gauge Miguel's optimism.
Read more »
April 25th, 2008
More recent coverage of global food crisis
In the NewsIn addition to important recent contributions to public understanding of the global food crisis by researchers at FSE, the issue is increasingly being picked up in the popular press. Read more »
April 24th, 2008
Ten million could die from rising food prices, says Timmer
In the NewsFSE visiting professor Peter Timmer calculates that up to 10 million people in Asian countries could die prematurely from the recent run-up in global rice prices. In an interview with the Center on Global Development, he described the spike in the cost of rice as "the most serious problem facing the world food economy since 1973-74, when a million people in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh alone died prematurely as a result of a rice crisis." Read more »
April 23rd, 2008
Naylor discusses rising food prices on NPR, KQED Forum
In the News: National Public Radio on April 16, 2008Rosamond Naylor, director of the Program on Food Security and the Environment, discusses the global food crisis on NPR's Morning Edition and KQED Forum. She also was interviewed by ABC7, while program director Marshall Burke talked to NBC11.
April 1st, 2008
FSE researchers receive grant from Rockefeller Foundation to study climate threats to African agriculture
Researchers at FSE have received a 3-year, $350,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to study the potential effects of climate change on agriculture and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Rockefeller funded work will seek to assess climate threats to staple food crops at a country level, quantify the sources of uncertainty inherent in these assessments, and determine what implications shifts in crop climates have for agricultural adaptation and genetic resources preservation - with the end goal of helping prioritize investments in agricultural development and food security under a changing climate. Read more »
RSS/XML feeds