What would it take to achieve a genuinely food-secure world-one without hunger or malnutrition, where everyone gets to consume the right quantity and quality of food to live a healthy, active, and productive life? Bringing about such a future requires transforming how our food is grown, managed, and distributed. From production to consumption, food systems must be sustainable, halting environmental degradation and even repairing the damage we have previously done.
This book provides an accessible guide to making healthy diets from sustainable food systems available to all. Glenn Denning bridges the divisive worlds of science, policy, and practice. He synthesizes the most relevant literature and shares personal perspectives and insights gained over four decades working in more than fifty countries, coupled with the real-world experience of hundreds of leading experts. Universal Food Security lays out key priorities-sustainable intensification, market infrastructure, postharvest stewardship, healthy diets, and social protection-and presents how to achieve food systems transformation.
Denning identifies the education and development of practitioner-leaders as the critical trigger of change. Universal Food Security informs and inspires those leaders-acting on their own and with others through institutions-to achieve a food-secure world. This book is an ideal handbook for students and practitioners looking to transform our food systems at all levels.
Industry Reviews
Denning...asks how countries can achieve sustainable food security. He carefully examines the essential components of terrestrial food production-including soil, water, seeds, and climate-and shows how they are integrated into what he defines as a 'food system.' * Foreign Affairs *
Provides clarity on many contemporary debates in agriculture based on the latest scientific evidence. It is easy to read, as technical matters are interspersed with examples and anecdotes from the author's life and career. I recommend this book to scholars and to activists and policy makers in the field. * Review of Agrarian Studies *
But beyond the roadmap, Denning reminds us that the engine driving this transformation is practitioner-leadership, underscored by education and development. This book stands as a testament to the potential for meaningful change when individuals and institutions commit to reshaping our world, making universal food security not merely a dream but a tangible and sustainable reality. -- Dilara Ozer * Politics Today *
This book, from the director of SIPA's MPA in Development Practice, allows students to understand how the current food and climate crises are intertwined, and why geopolitics can aggravate them. Using science and evidence, it teaches us how to find a solution to these global challenges. -- Mauricio Cardenas, Professor of Professional Practice in Global Leadership at Columbia University and former Minister of Finance, Colombia. * SIPA's Top Summer Reads *
Timely and well written...[this] important book is a call to all of us as well as for students and practitioners looking to transform our food systems and assist humanity at all levels. -- Dr. Francis Costello, Queen's University Belfast * The Irish News *
The strength of the book lies in the extraordinary experiences relayed as first-hand stories...there is no one else who brings this degree of high-level experience and influence to the table. -- C. Peter Timmer, Harvard University * The Developing Economies *
Universal Food Security is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary individual. Glenn Denning offers a comprehensive approach to one of the world's greatest challenges: how to feed humanity, including the poor and vulnerable, while protecting the Earth's environment. The book covers an enormous range of topics with remarkable clarity and wisdom, drawing upon Denning's long career as a world-leading practitioner, scholar, teacher, and policy advisor of agricultural systems. This book will educate, inspire, and help to guide today's and future leaders in the global effort to achieve a world without hunger. -- Jeffrey D. Sachs, University Professor at Columbia University and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Glenn Denning brings together a lifetime of experience as a development practitioner and teacher to present an extremely compelling story of what has worked and what has not in meeting the challenge of global hunger. This book is a must-read for all future development practitioners and aspiring policy experts. -- Prabhu Pingali, professor and founding director of the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition at Cornell University
It is hard enough to ensure food security during normal times. It is even harder during major shocks to the food production ecosystem. Glenn Denning's book provides invaluable tools for the 'first principles analysis' to support policy makers, scientists, investors, and business leaders, who have to act quickly during times of crisis. It couldn't have come at a better time as the world grapples with the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, and crushing inflation with high food and energy prices globally. -- Frannie Leautier, senior partner and CEO of SouthBridge Investments
