Speaker
Spotlight

Are we heading for a global food crisis driven by water, and can we still change course in time?

Today, 318 million people are already facing severe hunger, more than twice the number in 2019. This is not a future threat; it is a crisis unfolding now. Water plays a central role in this story, but it is not the only factor.

Agriculture relies on water for every crop we produce. With farming using roughly 70% of the world’s freshwater, increasingly frequent droughts, floods, and unpredictable rainfall are disrupting food production across continents. Recent years have shown how vulnerable our systems are: Zimbabwe’s corn harvest dropped by 70%, Spain’s olive crop halved, and a quarter of Somalia’s population faced food insecurity. Local shocks quickly become global ones, as crop failures drive up prices everywhere.

Looking ahead, the pressures deepen. By 2050, many more crops grown with rainfall alone will face unreliable water supplies, and over 80% of croplands could experience water scarcity if current trends continue.

But water is only part of the picture. Conflict remains the biggest driver of hunger, affecting nearly 70% of people experiencing acute food insecurity. Meanwhile, global funding for crisis response is shrinking even as needs surge. As food insecurity grows, so does displacement, creating a reinforcing cycle of hardship.

Can we still change course?
Yes, but only if we act decisively and at scale. Technologies exist to use water more efficiently in food production, but technology alone is not enough. Addressing the crisis requires progress on conflict, climate, financial support, and economic stability at the same time. The challenge is interconnected, and so the solutions must be too.

What first drew you to water and food systems, and what keeps you going as the stakes rise?

Growing up on a farm in Cornwall shaped my understanding of how deeply water affects people’s lives. Anyone watching Clarkson's Farm will see this in action today. Too much or too little rain could define an entire year. I now see the same anxieties on farms across Asia, Africa, and Latin America — families watching the sky and hoping their crops and animals survive.

This work matters because solutions exist, and I have seen the impact first hand: better water storage, drought‑tolerant crops, and early‑warning systems that give governments time to respond. When these tools align with political will and funding, change becomes real.

You say agriculture can restore water, not just consume it, what proves this can really work?

For most of history, farming has drawn water from rivers and aquifers without replenishing them. But this pattern can be reversed. Healthy soil absorbs and store water, releasing it slowly back into groundwater and rivers. Practices such as cover-crops, reduced tillage, diverse crop rotations, and planting trees around fields help rebuild soil health and strengthen water cycles.

The evidence is already clear. In the United States, improved irrigation methods saved billions of megalitres of water between 2019 and 2023. In California, farmers are now actively recharging depleted aquifers during wetter years using their land as a space to capture the excess. The potential is vast — some aquifers can store several times more water than surface reservoirs.

These approaches are not universal solutions, and recovery can take years, but they shift farming from extraction toward stewardship. When soils and water are restored, the benefits extend far beyond farms to rivers, wetlands, and communities.

Why are the next 15 years make-or-break for water and food security?

Decisions made now and over the next 15 years will lock in infrastructure, land use, and food systems for the next 50. The aquifers being depleted right now take decades to recharge — some won't recover at all if extraction continues at its current rate. The children who are malnourished today will carry those consequences for life. And the emissions still being produced are narrowing the range of climate futures available to us with every passing year.

At the same time, 2040 is roughly when global population peaks, when climate impacts are projected to intensify significantly, and when the gap between water supply and water demand — if current trends hold — becomes very difficult to bridge through technology or trade alone. We are not waiting for a crisis to arrive.

The window to bring the kind of systemic change that prevents the worst outcomes — in farming practice, in diet, in investment, in political will — is not indefinitely open. Fifteen years is enough time to transform food systems if we start now. It is not enough time to recover from another 15 years of delay.

What new insights or innovations from the Commission are you most excited to share at the Cambridge Festival?

There are some exciting innovations that are coming to the fore as we work on the commission:

a) Digital Water Management and Real-Time Monitoring Sensors, digital twins, and real‑time analytics help farmers monitor water use and quality across entire supply chains, reducing costs and improving efficiency and precision.

b) Salt-Tolerant and Drought-Resistant Crop Varieties Advances in crop bio-breeding have produced new plant varieties that thrive under water-stressed or saline conditions. These new varieties allow farming in harsher conditions, reducing pressure on freshwater supplies.

c) Closed-Loop Recycling in Food systems Circular economy principles are transforming water and food systems by turning what was once considered waste into valuable resources. Food scraps composed or anaerobically digested return nutrients to soil and generate clean energy, while treated wastewater can be recirculated for agriculture or industrial use — critical as freshwater scarcity increasingly threatens food production globally. Nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus recovered from wastewater close loops that traditional linear systems leave dangerously open. Water used in food processing is also being recycled, with major food producers now treating and reusing this internally, so reducing waste and environmental impact.

d) Diets and nutrition; What we eat is closely linked to the world’s remaining water resources. Global studies show that shifting toward more plant‑based and less processed foods can significantly reduce water use while improving health and lowering costs. But there is no one‑size‑fits‑all solution. Advising people everywhere to “eat less meat” is neither practical nor culturally meaningful. The real opportunity lies in eating better — through smarter, more efficient, and locally appropriate food systems. Traditional and regional diets often perform well on both nutrition and water efficiency, suggesting that part of the answer may be rediscovering and strengthening these food traditions rather than inventing entirely new ones.

Together, these innovations reflect a broader shift from reactive water use toward proactive, data-driven stewardship — increasingly urgent as freshwater consumption is projected to increase by 17% between 2020 and 2050, almost all of it in low- and middle-income countries.

Why does this conversation need to reach beyond experts, and why does this event matter now?

Food and water decisions are made far beyond research labs: in supermarkets, schools, farms, local councils, and kitchens. As food prices rise, people feel the impact immediately, and these bring choices and consequences beyond the grocery shop.

Events like the Cambridge Festival help bring these issues to the wider public, sparking the kind of understanding and demand that can drive real change. Cambridge has a special kind of convening power — it draws people who trust that the conversation will be serious, rigorous, and honest.

An event like this one can do something that a journal paper or a policy brief cannot: it can make someone feel the weight of this in a way that changes how they think, what they talk about at home, what they ask of their politicians, what they choose to put on their plate. That shift in public understanding and public demand is not peripheral to solving this crisis. It is central to it. Experts can identify the path. But it is people who have to decide to walk it.