Access to Energy and its Global Effect on Food Security

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Technological advancement has had an overwhelming effect on every aspect of our lives—from simple tasks such as making a cup of coffee to something so fantastical as space exploration. One aspect we often overlook or are unaware of is its effect on agriculture and how it’s changed how we grow and get access to our foods.

Energy is the most important component to food growth. Over the course of our history, a constant increase in food production and the energy needed to complete it has been necessary to match the increasing world population. This imbalance of energy required to meet the required production levels has been so readily accessible to developed countries that food production more often accedes the amount required by the public resulting in massive wastes of foods. Developing countries (where we outsource many of our agricultural needs to) are experiencing the complete opposite problem.





In these countries, energy that can be used to produce more food in less time, store and transport the foods to larger markets is impossible to find. This hinders farmers’ productivity and income making it harder for them to escape poverty and capitalize their land.

To counter this issue, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has partnered with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Duke Energy and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to create Powering Agriculture: An Energy Grand Challenge for Development (PAEGCD).

The PAEGCD program seeks to find and implement new and sustainable methods to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy solutions to increase productivity around the world. This innovative work has reached thousands of people and with continuous contributions is helping improve the quality of life and food security for those in poverty worldwide.

To learn more about the program, please log on to http://www.poweringag.org and learn about food security and the research being done around the topic through http://www.ifpri.org/topic/food-security .



Suedeh El-Barati

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