By: Kimberly Reed, Executive Director, International Food Information Council Foundation   Date: 11/22/11

On Saturday, I was in Atlanta with several hundred middle and high school student leaders, parents, and teachers as part of the 2011 National Cluster Meeting of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), a network of over 205,000 members in nearly 6,500 chapters in the 50 states, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.  We had a fun time talking about “Understanding Our Food” and the “9 Billion-People Question” and how they can be part of the solution.

What is the “9 Billion-People Question?” 

Between now and 2050, the population of our planet will increase by 2 billion people – from 7 billion to 9 billion.  The question remains…how are we going to feed these 9 billion human beings?  According to the United Nations, we will need 100 percent more food and 70 percent of it must come from efficiency-enhancing technologies. The FCCLA student leaders will be a part of the age group who will be working throughout their professional lives to solve this problem.  As they think about their future career path, I encouraged them to think about careers in the agriculture, health, nutrition, and STEM – science, technology, engineering, and math – fields.

During interactive sessions, we discussed facts about modern food production, food processing, and technology and how this will be part of the solution to the “9 Billion-People Question.”  The students enjoyed the thought-provoking International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation short video called What’s for Lunch. We also discussed the IFIC Foundation’s Understanding Our Food Communications Tool Kit, which includes a 13-page Leader Guide and five informational handouts.  We learned that processed foods are used for a variety of reasons: availability, safety, freshness, convenience, affordability, variety and choice, and improved nutrition.

Today's Students Solving Tomorrow's Problems

Thanks to Eurekatory, a nonprofit which spotlights and mentors student talent to create the next generation of inventors, problem-solvers and entrepreneurs, the FCCLA students participated in an exercise to show how they can be tomorrow’s problem solvers for the world.  They were tasked with the following:

1.) Identifying a problem regarding food that was relevant to their community;
2.) Showing how this problem impacts their community;
3.) Developing the solution; and
4.) Stating how they can use this solution to achieve success. 

Their solutions to problems like food safety concerns, obesity, homelessness, high food prices, and food taxes were impressive! Hopefully, some of these students will chose to be a part of the solution to the “9 Billion-People Question” and bring their talents to help us feed our ever-growing world.