Office of Global Food Security
Our Mission
The Department of State prioritizes food security as an issue of national security. The Department leads and coordinates U.S. diplomatic engagement on food systems, food security, and nutrition in bilateral, multilateral, and regional fora, working closely with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and other departments and agencies. The Special Envoy for Global Food Security serves as the Feed the Future Deputy Coordinator for Diplomacy.
UN Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment – Day 2
On day two of the UN Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment in Rome, U.S. Special Envoy of Global Food Security Dr. Cary Fowler highlighted $100 million the U.S. government approved to support soil mapping and fertility and called for additional funding and financial mechanisms to continue supporting the resilience crop initiative in Africa.
UN Food Systems Summit – Interview
At the UN Food Systems Summit, Special Envoy Fowler highlighted what we need to do to improve food security, with soil efficiency, crop diversity, and resilient food systems.
El Niño: Its Influence on Global Food Insecurity
From a food security perspective, I’m most concerned – and we’re keeping a particularly close, watchful eye on Southern Africa, on Central America, and Southeast Asia.
El Niño is also correlated with an uptick in conflict. Warmer, drier weather reduces economic output and intensifies the competition for scarce resources, especially where you have situations of ethnic fractionalization and inequality.
Aim for Climate Summit
If you take a step back and view the situation we’re in historically today, I think you would agree with me that agriculture faces an historically unprecedented combination of challenges. At the most fundamental level, those challenges that are in food security really depends on our having fertile soils and depends on having adaptive crops, adapted to climate change, to market conditions.
Roundtable with Japanese Media
60% of the people who are food insecure in the world are living in countries with active conflict….
You have COVID, conflict, and climate change, historically low stockpiles of grain, trade bans, and fertilizer problems, and water depletion, and high energy prices, essentially almost everything that could go wrong was going wrong.
Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils Launch
Our work on crops and soils is a key element that will help build resilient food systems. Yes, it’s true. A robust, productive, sustainable food system requires more than soil health. But simply put, there is no such thing as food security or good nutrition without these two fundamental elements: healthy soils and healthy crops.
2022 Borlaug Dialogue
The current food crisis is multi-causal. COVID. Climate. Conflict. Very high fuel prices, a fertilizer situation, export bans, low – by historical standards – grain stockpiles… On the list of the top 10 most important challenges that we face in regards to food security, climate is 1, 3, 5…because climate changes everything.
In the future, the best growing seasons of the future will closely resemble the worst of the past. Let that sink in.
Press Releases
On the Global Food Crisis
We will never achieve food security without fertile soils and adapted and productive crops. The United States is providing an initial $100 million through the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS).
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September 1, 2023
Special Envoy Fowler Travels to Canberra, Australia