Plants and Humanity

How can plants help the world achieve Zero Hunger?

I was asked this while preparing for Looking@2020, a teaching project focused on the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals. Ambitious, thoughtful, inclusive and action-oriented, the SDG’s nail down Earth’s and humanity’s challenges. Zero Hunger is Goal #2, listed right after
Goal #1 - No Poverty in the 17 Goals. 

The short answer to the hunger and plant connection is grains. Grains make for the “staff of life” – what fills us up most and nourishes us. And all grains are seeds, the baby plant powerhouses packed with high nutrition and energy. Corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, corn, rye, barley, quinoa, and oats are grains and seeds that feed the world.
 

Yet simply planting these seeds for Zero Hunger is not enough. There are so many considerations:

Where are the plants grown?

What soil is needed?

What is the water resource?

How much land is available?

What’s the infrastructure that brings the plants to people?

How can communities help themselves?

How can well-fed people boost opportunities for hungry people?

Hunger drives humanity. While teaching, I’d ask students what the world would be like if no one needed food. No farms. No restaurants. No grocery stores. And no breaking of bread, when people eat together and form important bonds with each other. Hunger drives industry and human society.

When hunger is satisfied, people can go on with work, learning, culture and care for one another.  Hunger for people can be cyclical, from crop variations, paycheck timing, and quality of food. Extreme hunger and malnutrition can progress to marasmus, too few calories and kwashiorkor, and extreme protein deficiency.

 The short answer to solving world hunger is to grow plants, but let’s keep looking for solutions.