March 4th, 2008

Cohen's 10-week Google.org course on poverty and development now available on YouTube

Full video of the Google.org course on poverty and development that Program on Global Justice Director Joshua Cohen moderated from September to November 2007 is now available online at YouTube.com. The 10-week course, which focused on understanding poverty and development at the global, national, local, and personal levels, was the first of three courses on Google.org's main areas of philanthropic activity. Read more »

February 4th, 2008

FSE researchers' study on climate change and hunger published in Science

Crops of central importance to many of the worlds poor could be greatly harmed by climate change within the next two decades, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE). The results are scheduled for publication on February 1st in the journal Science. "Understanding where these climate threats will be greatest, for what crops, and on what time scales, will be central to our efforts at fighting hunger and poverty over the coming decades," said lead author David Lobell, senior research scholar at FSE. The article has received extensive coverage in the popular press. Read more »

January 16th, 2008

FSI and Woods Institute announce William Wrigley Senior Fellowship

Honoring the legacy of their husband and father, William Wrigley, Julie Ann Wrigley '71 and Alison Wrigley Rusack '80, along with Alison's husband, Geoffrey Claflin Rusack, have joined together to endow a new senior fellowship that will span both the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Woods Institute for the Environment. Read more »

January 9th, 2008

FSE and colleagues awarded $1.2 million for study of climate and biofuels production

Researchers at FSE and the Carnegie Institute at Stanford have been awarded $1.2 million by Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) for the study of the effect of biofuels expansion on climate. Read more »

December 3rd, 2007

Gates Foundation awards FSE and collaborators $3.8 million for the study of biofuels and food security

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded FSE and collaborators $3.8 million over three years for the study of "Biofuels and Food Security in the Developing World". The project is a collaboration between FSE, the International Food Policy Research Institute, the University of Nebraska, and the Center on Chinese Agricultural Policy. Read more »

December 2nd, 2007

Lobell joins FSE as Senior Research Scholar

FSE is very pleased to announce that David Lobell will be joining the program full time as a Senior Research Scholar, effective January 1 2008. Lobell is a world expert on the interactions between climate and agriculture, and his research attempts to use modern observational and computing capabilities (remote sensing, GIS, climate and crop models) to improve food security and reduce environmental impacts of food production. He is currently a post-doc at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and received his PhD in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford in 2005.

December 1st, 2007

FSE grad student Rodrigo Pizzaro wins Tech Museum Award

A non-governmental organization co-run by FSE graduate student Rodrigo Pizzaro has won a Tech Museum award in recognition of its "innovative work benefiting humanity". A non-governmental organization co-run by FSE graduate student Rodrigo Pizzaro has won a Tech Museum award in recognition of its "innovative work benefiting humanity". Read more »

Gates Foundation gives $3.8 Million to Stanford University for biofuels, food security research

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Agricultural Development Program has awarded Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) and a team of collaborators $3.8 million over three years to conduct a quantitative assessment of the effect of biofuels expansion on food security in the developing world. This work will determine how different scenarios of expanded biofuels production in rich and poor countries will affect global and regional food prices, farmer incomes, and food consumption of the poor. In three case-study countries (India, Mozambique, Senegal), it will make a more detailed assessment of the opportunities and pitfalls associated with an array of possible biofuels development scenarios (e.g., using different crops for biofuels production, using marginal land versus highly productive land, etc.). We expect the work will represent the first systematic, detailed effort to address the effects of biofuels expansion on welfare in poor countries and the first available analytic tool for assessing possible biofuels investments in individual developing countries. Project collaborators include FSE, the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Center on Chinese Agricultural Policy, and the University of Nebraska Read more »

November 7th, 2007

FSE welcomes Peter Timmer as Visiting Professor

FSE is excited to welcome Peter Timmer as FSE Visiting Professor. A global expert on agricultural policy and rural development, Timmer's current work focuses on three broad topics: the nature of "pro-poor growth" and its application in Indonesia and other countries in Asia; the supermarket revolution in developing countries and its impact on the poor (both producers and consumers); and the structural transformation in historical perspective as a framework for understanding the political economy of agricultural policy. Read more »

May 3rd, 2007

Climate change a threat to Indonesian agriculture, PNAS study says

A new study published May 8th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) finds that Indonesian rice agriculture is greatly affected by short-run climate variability, and could be significantly harmed by long-run climate change. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, one of the world's largest producers and consumers of rice, and is characterized by a population of rural poor who depend on rice agriculture for their livelihood.
Read more »

March 20th, 2007

FSE scholars urge the need for both research and education as Berkeley's new Energy Biosciences Institute moves forward

The institute's primary goal will be facilitating the production of biofuels on a scale large enough to result in a net drop of carbon emission linked to vehicles. "The magnitude of the scientific and environmental challenges involved in raising (crop) yields and at the same time protecting the environment is underestimated," cautions FSE scholar Kenneth Cassman. Chris Somerville adds that socioeconomic research should be a substantial portion of that effort as well.

• » San Francisco Chronicle article
• » San Francisco follow-up article

March 19th, 2007

Global warming in the last 20 years has led to a decline in crop yields resultlng in an annual loss of $5 billion, says FSE scholars Lobell and Field

David Lobell and Chris Field released a report in the Environmental Research Letters journal on March 16, 2007 announcing that rising global temperatures are causing the loss of roughly 40 million tons of corn, wheat and barley production each year. Although yields in general are climbing due to technological improvements, higher temperatures have held yield potential down. "A key moving forward is how well cropping systems can adapt to a warmer world," Lobell said. "Investments in this area could potentially save billions of dollars and millions of lives."
Read more »

Biofuels research based on work of FSE scholar Chris Somerville helps win biofuels start-up $5 million in funding

Chris Somerville told CNET last month that the US has the spare plant matter to produce 130 billion gallons of ethanol. The US uses about 140 billion gallons of transportation fuel a year. Read more »

February 23rd, 2007

Global impact of livestock production focus of recent event

The harmful environmental effects of livestock production are becoming increasingly serious at all levels-local, regional, national and global-and urgently need to be addressed, according to researchers from Stanford, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other organizations. Read more »

June 21st, 2006

Fish farming does not create a net food gain for the world, says aquaculture specialist Rosamond Naylor

Rosamond Naylor claims that around two pounds of wild prey fish are required to create one pound of farmed fish.

• » New York Times Magazine article

April 1st, 2006

FSI's New Program on Food Security and the Environment Tackles Global Hunger and Environmental Destruction

This past autumn, the Freeman Spogli Institute ( FSI ) in conjunction with the Woods Institute for the Environment launched a program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) to address the deficit in academia and, on a larger scale, the global dialogue surrounding the critical issues of food security, poverty, and environmental degradation. Read more »

March 20th, 2006

Aquaculture specialist Rosamond Naylor explores whether fish farms can sustainably meet the growing world demand

Can fish farms nourish the world without despoiling the ocean? Stanford experts work to solve a feeding quandary. Read more »

March 9th, 2006

Study confirms value of organic farming

CESP senior fellow Harold A. Mooney details the dangerous impacts nitrogen-rich chemical fertilizers can have on the atmosphere and important watersheds. He asserts "the use of organic versus chemical fertilizers can play a role in reducing these adverse effects." Read more »

March 8th, 2006

New Program on Food Security and the Environment Tackles Global Hunger and Environmental Destruction

This past autumn the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) in conjunction with the Woods Institute for the Environment launched a program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) to address the deficit in academia and, on a larger scale, the global dialogue surrounding the critical issues of food security, poverty, and environmental degradation. Read more »

February 8th, 2006

CESP senior fellows receive funding from the Presidential Fund to support the launch of the new program on Food Security and the Environment

The project, "Feeding the World in the 21st Century: Exploring the Connections Between Food Production, Health, Environmental Resources and International Security," was one of eight projects to be be awarded. The project will be headed by Food Security and the Environment program director Rosamond L. Naylor. Read more »

December 8th, 2005

Researchers urge better understanding of true costs of industrial livestock production

CESP senior fellows Rosamond L. Naylor, Walter P. Falcon, and Harold A. Mooney released the findings of a new study on the impacts of an increasingly global livestock industry in the Policy Forum of the Dec. 9 issue of Science. Read more »

October 28th, 2005

Thompson comments on precarious status of US fisheries and fishermen

The 1976 Magnuson Act, which provided governmental assistance to the fishing industry, supported the expansion of a fishing fleet built up beyond the capacity of the seas to provide that much fish, states Barton H. Thompson in a October 25 report in USA Today. Read more »

October 13th, 2005

Walter Falcon featured in the world hunger documentary Silent Killer: The Unfinished Campaign Against Hunger.

The film, hosted by NPR's Scott Simon, offers a compelling examination of both the problem and solutions surrounding world hunger. The program aired on PBS station KQED/San Francisco on Wednesday, November 2nd at 11:00 p.m. Read more »

June 29th, 2004

At climate symposium, Kennedy posits global warming as most serious worldwide threat

Speaking at a June 24 joint conference sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, CESP senior fellow Donald Kennedy warned of the pressing need to address global warming now. Read more »

Bill Gates notes FSE study in keynote address at the World Food Prize Symposium

In his keynote speech yesterday, Gates cited a FSE study that predicted that farmers in southern Africa will lose 25 percent of their productivity with corn 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 looks at crop adaptation strategies for climate change and investment priorities. Read more »