In September, UN member states will vote on the Sustainable Development Goals, which, if approved, will come into effect in January 2016. The second of these 17 goals calls for ending hunger and achieving food security. This is an ambitious target to hit by 2030 — in the world today, about one in nine people do not have enough to eat.

As the global population continues its rapid growth, this problem seems likely to grow as well. By 2050, the world will have 2 billion more mouths to feed, many of whom will be born in rice-producing and -consuming countries. Today, about two-thirds of the world’s hungry live in Asia, where water-intensive rice is a staple crop, raising questions about the role of climate change and water scarcity in the food security equation. How can we increase production while protecting the environment and its limited resources? To what extent will genetic engineering or a change in diets be necessary to achieve this goal? How can we ensure food security for a planet of nine billion?

Speaker Josette Lewis, Associate Director of the World Food Center at UC Davis, and Robert Stewart Zeigler, Director General of the International Rice Research Institute, will be in discussion.

Andrew Donohue, Senior Editor at Reveal, moderates the conversation.

For more information please visit: http://www.worldaffairs.org/events/event/1491