Hans Kaper, Georgetown University

Abstract

The agricultural establishment has made significant progress in its efforts to improve agricultural productivity and efficiency. Yet, with about one billion people hungry, two billion people with insufficient nutrients, and over two billion people already overweight or obese, undernutrition and malnutrition are affecting more than half the world's population. Clearly, when enough food is produced but sizable fractions of the population suffer from malnutrition or are overweight, we need to get a better understanding of the global food system.

In this talk, we give an overview of recent efforts at modeling food systems using concepts from the theory of complex systems and highlight research issues for MPE.