WCBI-TV Columbus
Leaders attend conference at MSU to talk about World Hunger
By T'Keeyah Cummings
STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) - Tonight, 1 in 6 people in the state of Mississippi will go to bed hungry.
Not knowing where your next meal is coming from is called food insecurity. It’s a huge problem.
And one that scientists at Mississippi State talked about today with elected leaders, farm managers, educators, and the business community
Imagine rationing your food. Being so hungry that you don’t know what to do.
It happens to older people, to younger people, to parents who go without to feed their children.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, over 13 million households in the U.S worry about where their next meal is coming from.
That’s why elected officials and other leaders are looking for ways to decrease those numbers.
Ag Researchers at Mississippi State University are focused on how they can help families lower food insecurities. Today they shared that information with Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith among others.
“Food insecurity is a great question and challenge to address. but were meeting those needs. Today was about the research that it takes to make sure we’re growing the most abundant clinical safest food we can possibly grow. We want to make everyone aware it is incredibly important to have safe secure food,” said Senator Hyde-Smith
Dr. Keith Coble, MSU’s Vice President of Agriculture, Forestry, and Veterinary Medicine say as this problem continues, it’s important to keep the younger generation involved.
“We talk about the issue all the time. We talk about it in various different ways. How are we gonna feed the world is probably a core day one subject in a plant science class and in an animal science class,” said Dr. Coble.
Senator Hyde-Smith says it’s important that students look ahead to fill in those hunger gaps for Mississippi families.
“We want to recruit students to help do the research that will go into these fields that Mississippi State offers because we have brilliant minds here and you never know which direction one of these students will go in or end up one day in being one of our brilliant research scientists,” said Senator Hyde-Smith.
And as the population grows farmers have to focus on meeting future needs.
"We have to look to the future. By 2050 we’re gonna have to feed 9 billion people in this world and it is not gonna happen without research so were a growing population and our food supply has to be growing to keep up with that demand,” said Senator Hyde-Smith.
Experts say food insecurities have gotten worst since the Covid-19 pandemic.