PCGFS Report - Taking Measure 2011-2016
Letter from the Director
The Purdue Center for Global Food Security was created in 2011 - in the wake of the global food price crisis and rising concerns about the emerging associated challenges of climate change; rapid growth in human population; urbanization; dietary changes; and inequities in trade, income, and resources.
Hunger and poverty have shown decline in recent years, but concerns abound regarding the world’s ability to provide healthy and environmentally sustainable diets for all its peoples. We created the Center with the premise that Purdue University - with its rich legacy in global development and the preeminence of its educational and research programs in agriculture, science, and engineering - could be among the leaders in advancing the global agenda on food and nutrition security.
The Center’s creation was a result of a collective vision of more than 70 faculty members who responded to a campus-wide callout in 2010 to discuss the emerging global challenge of food and nutrition security. The Center would be placed inside Discovery Park, the large Purdue research infrastructure designed and built to serve as a hub for facilitating campuswide transdisciplinary research, education, and entrepreneurial engagement.
The Center’s programs have been organized under the three pillars of Education, Research, and Policy Advocacy. We are an educational program that engages in purpose-driven research,and a research program that informs policy and advocacy. We are encouraged by the progress we have made in each of these areas and emboldened by the future we see.
Through the great work of our diverse and talented faculty, the encouragement and support of Purdue University leadership, the goodwill of our global partners, and most of all, the energy and enthusiasm of the many young men and women who have gone through our educational and research programs, the Center has already made substantive contributions and is off to a great start.
You will read in this report how the Center, in its first five years, has become a leader in addressing a range of global food security challenges, with contributions in research and policy-making as well as in human and institutional capacity building. In the pages that follow, you will meet scientists, students, teachers, and decision-makers who, individually and collectively, are impacting people’s lives and livelihoods. Given the complex scientific, environmental, economic, social, and political factors that affect issues of global food and nutrition security, you will note that these individuals represent a remarkable range of disciplines and interests.
- Gebisa Ejeta, Executive Director