Student Resources

Book: How to Feed the World by Vaclav Smil
Vaclav Smil has produced an increasing repertoire of books summarizing how humans consume different resources. Over four decades he has visited many topics including food availability and its constraints. His latest 2025 book, "How to Feed the World: The History and Future of Food" stands as h...

In Memoriam: The US Famine Early Warning System, Known as FEWS, as well as SERVIR
The program which many experts considered to be the most effective at stopping famines and starvation and arguably the single most valuable aid program of all time, has ended its 40 year run of success, as the White House shut it down, alongside hundreds of other global initiatives, without review, ...

Prayer Vigil for Foreign Aid Unites Evangelicals for Aid
A prayer vigil for foreign aid was held March 11, among some 50 Christians, at the Capitol Hill Presbyterian...

USAID Library of Project Reports and Evaluations
American Taxpayers often have questions about how funds for foreign aid work. In early 2025 there has also been claims -- and false information -- by Congress and social media about an overall lack of transparency about this aid. The primary or lead aid agency for the US Government is the Unite...

Questions to Ask about Aid from USAID
The US Government Agency that Brings Aid - USAID USAID, started in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy. Estimates are that some 3 billion people in 150 countries have benefited directly from U.S. food assistance . The Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, a part of USAID, identifies fo...

Regenerative Agriculture to Mitigate Hunger: Thurow’s Latest Book
Book Review: Roger Thurow’s Against the Grain: How Farmers Around the Globe are Transforming Agriculture to Nourish the World and Health the Planet (2024, Publisher: Agate Surrey) American journalist, Roger Thurow, has written consistently about global hunger...

Remembering Don Kennedy, Human Biologist
Don Kennedy, who passed away four years ago, was founder of the unique Human Biology program at Stanford University, where he served as a role model as arguably the most influential teacher of his generation, particularly teaching about intersections of biology, ecology and policies. In addition...

Past World Hunger Prize Winners
Thirteen winners of the World Hunger Prize issued an appeal on October 30, 2024 at the Borlaug Dialogue gathering in Des Moines, Iowa. The annual gathering, this year from October 29-31, showcased over 50 speakers from around the world, including the 2024 World Food Prize winners Dr. Geoffrey ...

Why Nations Fail, Famine and the Nobel Prize
The 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded in October to the authors Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in part for the analysis of international inequalities in their best-selling 2012 book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (Crown Publishers), which arr...

Stalled Progress Against Hunger for Third Consecutive Year
For the third year in a row, global hunger remains persistently high after the increase during and because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The United Nations’...