Hundreds of people from all over the world are gathering in Des Moines this week for the World Food Prize addressing the issue of hunger.
Norman Borlaug started the World Food Prize after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. His idea was to give an international award to honor an outstanding agriculture scientist working to end hunger and increase food supply.
One event taking place this week was the Iowa Hunger Summit Tuesday. Dr. Yogesh Shah is Associate Dean for Global Health at Des Moines University. He was the opening speaker at the Iowa Hunger Summit and one issue he addressed was saving water.
?60 to 70% of all our water consumption goes into agriculture. As we feed more and more people around the world, we need more agriculture so our farmers and researchers need to come up with drought resistance and less water usage on our farms and fields,? Shah said.
Shah suggests two solutions with saving water.
?First of all we need to become more useful of water we have now. Second, we need to harvest our rainwater better and use it appropriately in our farms and agriculture. I feel our farmers can play a significant role by seeing how they can reduce or use water appropriately and still have good productivity,? Shah said.
He realizes water is a key commodity and might become a major issue soon creating conflicts in the world.
