An Open Letter to the UN, G-20, and National Governments on COVID-19 and Agriculture for Food and Nutrition Security

More than 100 eminent individuals, including Shenggen Fan, one of our CoSAI Commissioners, and many other agriculture and food specialists, have signed an open letter calling for "urgent action to address a set of internationally coordinated, locally relevant actions to address the medium- and longer-term impacts of COVID-19 on agriculture, food, and nutrition security". 

The authors state that "Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) are essential in addressing COVID-19 and other global threats and challenges. The revolution in ICT and in biology can help re-imagine the food and agricultural systems to provide food security to the poor, and to transform the sector by reducing its environmental and climate footprints. Disruptive innovations are needed to increase productivity and income through precision farming and timely delivery of inputs to farmers’ fields, through a 'More from Less' approach. research should also help bring new technologies to markets, including 'out-of-the-box' ideas such as meats from single cell proteins to biofuels from algae; from accelerated fish farming to improved livestock breeding to plant-based proteins. Such frameworks should enable rapid movement from 'lab to land' and from 'farm gate to consumer plate'."   CoSAI will be examining these issues closely.