David Lobell talks COVID-19-related food insecurity | Stanford News
In an interview with Stanford News, affiliate David Lobell discusses the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on global food supply and security.
“COVID-19, combined with the effects of ongoing civil conflicts, hotter and drier weather in many areas, and an unfolding locust invasion in Africa and the Middle East, could cut off access to food for tens of millions of people. The world is ‘on the brink of a hunger pandemic,’ according to World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley, who warned the United Nations Security Council recently of the urgent need for action to avert ‘multiple famines of biblical proportions.’
Understanding how these conditions – alone or in combination – might affect crop harvests and food supply chains is essential to finding solutions, according to David Lobell, the Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. Below, Lobell discusses the connection between immigration and U.S. food security, a counter-intuitive effect of COVID-19 and more.”
