How much food do people need?

The average adult needs between 2,200 and 2,900 calories each day, and also requires a variety of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients to stay healthy. For many people, having enough food to meet these requirements isn’t a problem; for others it is.

Poverty, war, and poor farming practices are among the reasons that people go hungry. In some parts of the world there are millions of hungry people. According to the United Nations, Asia has the largest number of underfed people—about half a billion. Africa comes next with about 200,000,000 hungry people.

Scientists, politicians, and citizens around the world disagree about how to solve the problem of world hunger. Scientists have discovered new technology to create more food, but many people disagree that it’s a good method. The one thing everyone agrees on is that no one in the world should have to go hungry.

The Need for Food

Scientist Florence Wambugu works with farmers in Kenya. Kenya is a country in East Africa. She helps farmers grow bigger and better crops. Wambugu is interested in finding simple ways to raise more food. In the past ten years, Wambugu has spent a lot of time studying sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are an important food in her part of Kenya. A virus kept attacking the plants. It stopped the sweet potatoes from growing properly. Some farmers, says Wambugu, lost three-quarters of their crops because of the virus.

Wambugu went to war against the virus. Her search for a weapon that could save the sweet potatoes led to a laboratory in St. Louis, Missouri. Scientists there are studying new ways to create better plants.

The lab’s work focuses on genes. Genes are the chemical “computer programs” found

Scientists research genes to create better plants.

Scientists research genes to create better plants.

Key Vocabulary

  • virus n., a type of disease

  • gene n., a physical unit that controls what a living cell is like

In Other Words

  • raise grow

  • went to war against worked hard to stop

  • weapon that could way to

  • laboratory place where scientists work