The world finds itself today in a global food crisis of increasing demand in the face of limited supply, a recipe for skyrocketing food costs, increasing poverty, potential famine, and political instability. What are the causes of today’s food crisis, and what can be done about it? British economist and demographer Thomas Robert Malthus predicted in the early nineteenth century that a food crisis was inescapable, since population was seen as increasing geometrically while food supply was seen as increasing arithmetically. Are his predictions coming true?

In addition to remarks by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, panelists will address agricultural productivity, technology, international economics and trade, biofuels, and climate change. Speakers include Nicholas Eberstadt, the Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy at AEI; Suzanne Hunt, a consultant and the former director of the bioenergy program at the Worldwatch Institute; Anne Krueger, former first deputy director of the International Monetary Fund and now a professor of international economics at Johns Hopkins University; Asma Lateef, director of the Bread for the World Institute; Peter McPherson, president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development; Namanga Ngongi, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa; and Robert Paarlberg, a professor of political science at Wellesley College. AEI president Christopher DeMuth will provide introductory remarks, and panels will be moderated by AEI’s Mauro De Lorenzo, Kenneth P. Green, Kevin A. Hassett, and Philip I. Levy.