Environment

FSI scholars approach their research on the environment from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Center on Food Security and the Environment weighs the connection between climate change and agriculture; the impact of biofuel expansion on land and food supply; how to increase crop yields without expanding agricultural lands; and the trends in aquaculture. FSE’s research spans the globe – from the potential of smallholder irrigation to reduce hunger and improve development in sub-Saharan Africa to the devastation of drought on Iowa farms. David Lobell, a senior fellow at FSI and a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, has looked at the impacts of increasing wheat and corn crops in Africa, South Asia, Mexico and the United States; and has studied the effects of extreme heat on the world’s staple crops.

This study aimed to better understand the dramatic health improvements in Maoist China and the age-related health disparities that it may have generated. The investigators validated official Chinese health statistics to establish the magnitude of China’s mortality decline between 1950 and 1980; and identified the proximate determinants correlated with China’s mortality decline, using data on regional variation in such factors as primary healthcare infrastructure, drinking water quality, sanitation, nutrition, and childhood vaccination rates.

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