With post-lecture discussion led by Chancellor Randy Woodson.
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Sir Charles Godfray is the Hope Professor of Zoology at Oxford University, and Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, whose work examines how the global food system will need to change and adapt to the challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. In 2010 he authored a paper, “Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People,” in the journal Science that has been cited over 6,000 times. Many of his more recent papers on the subject dig deeper into this subject.

We can now imagine a future where humanity’s demands of the earth plateau or even decrease. But at that plateau there will be billions more people needing to be fed than exist today. Professor Godfray’s talk will argue that it is possible to feed this number of people without despoiling the environment, but only if we make hard decisions today.

Presented in collaboration with the Genetics and Genomic Initiative at NC State and the Society for Risk Analysis.