Global Hunger

As the global population is continuously increasing there is an urgent need to step up the efforts and technologies to increase agriculture production in a sustained manner, decrease food wastage, and improvise the global supply chain to ensure the availability of nutritious food to the masses. The United Nations State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 reported that nearly 828 million people are affected by hunger and by the end of 2030 roughly 670 million people will still be undernourished, that is 8 percent of the global population. For several decades, the Green revolution was able to sustain the growing population, and reduced the dependence of countries on imports but left the soil degraded and severely affected the biodiversity. The intensive agriculture system brought by the Green revolution resulted in huge dependence on fertilizers for increasing production and hence became a contributor, accounting for 21-37% of the greenhouse gas emissions, and victim to climate change. Frequent natural disasters such as hurricanes, climate change, and pandemics weakened the existing agriculture systems and aggravated food insecurity. Shifting away from high-input crop production systems and monocultures towards sustainable practices will improve yield and diversity. In the current scenario, reducing hunger requires agriculture to be more efficient, climate-smart, and resilient. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) helps achieve three goals simultaneously, viz. enhanced productivity, reduced emissions, and increased resilience. On the other hand, digitization of agriculture can help cut down costs, lower environmental footprints, increase profits, and forecast yield based on management strategies. In the forthcoming years, CSA must work in conjunction with digital technologies to achieve a sustainable and smart future for farming. Considering the impact of existing agricultural production systems on the communities and ecosystem, promoting sustainable intensification or sustainable agriculture practices will alleviate soil-related problems, improve the environment and sustain productivity. It is an ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially acceptable production system that focuses on environmental sustainability across supply chains. Therefore, building resilient farming systems is imperative to avert large-scale future shortages and to ensure food security.