Oct 26, 2020 Kirsten Gelsdorf and Galen Fountain Fountain and Gelsdorf: COVID, hunger are intertwined The U.N. World Food Program's logo at the agency's headquarters in New York. AP Photo/Robert Bumstead This year, there has been a laser focus on COVID-19. So when earlier this month the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the United Nation’s World Food Programme, people asked (as our students have been doing): What is the connection between food security and a global pandemic? Throughout time, the availability and accessibility of food have played a central role in defining the human condition. Clearly, civilizations have prospered or fallen in direct correlation to how well those fundamental needs have been met. Globally, and just prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, 690 million people suffered from chronic hunger and approximately 135 million were in a state of crisis due to acute hunger that threatened their livelihoods and their very lives. What is critical to understand is that food insecurity is not just driven by a drought. We have long known that where there is conflict, there is likely to be hunger. By some estimates, more people died from hunger during World War II than by violence. But there is also an increasing realization that hunger itself drives instability. We see this in modern day crises like Syria and the Sahel, where environmental degradation produced human migration and conflict among groups. Food insecurity is therefore a multidimensional challenge linked to conflict, climate change, persistent poverty, and, yes, epidemics (not to mention pandemics). The WFP is forecasting that due to COVID-19, the number of hungry people in the countries where it operates could increase up to 270 million before the year’s end — an 82% increase from before the pandemic took hold. Up to 6,000 children now could die every day from preventable causes as a direct result of pandemic-related disruptions. READ FULL ARTICLE IN THE DAILY PROGRESS Kirsten Gelsdorf Kirsten Gelsdorf is a professor of practice in public policy and Co-Director of the UVA Humanitarian Collaborative in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Gelsdorf has 19 years of experience working in the humanitarian sector, most recently serving as the Chief of the Policy Analysis and Innovation section at the United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Read full bio Galen Fountain Galen Fountain is a lecturer at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Previously, he served for nearly two decades as Clerk of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies and prior to that as Counsel to the Senate Committee on Small Business. Read full bio Related Content Kirsten Gelsdorf Compassion in Action: Contemplative Science and Practice in the Classroom and the World News In March 2024, Batten School Dean Ian Solomon and professors Kirsten Gelsdorf and Abigail Scholer joined dozens of scholars and others from around the world in Dharamsala, India, to meet with the Dalai Lama and explore ways to bring contemplative science and practice into teaching, research, policymaking and leadership in all sectors. Dean Solomon, Professors Gelsdorf and Scholer to Meet with the Dalai Lama News Dean Ian Solomon and professors Kirsten Gelsdorf and Abigail Scholer will travel to Dharamsala next week with leaders from UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center to spend a week with practitioners and researchers in the contemplative sciences from around the world. They will also have an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Galen Fountain Food Security in the Age of COVID-19 News Many Americans take the stability of their food supply for granted, but the pandemic has revealed domestic and global weaknesses in our food systems, one Batten professor argues. Stay Up To Date with the Latest Batten News and Events Subscribe
Kirsten Gelsdorf Kirsten Gelsdorf is a professor of practice in public policy and Co-Director of the UVA Humanitarian Collaborative in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Gelsdorf has 19 years of experience working in the humanitarian sector, most recently serving as the Chief of the Policy Analysis and Innovation section at the United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Read full bio
Galen Fountain Galen Fountain is a lecturer at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Previously, he served for nearly two decades as Clerk of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies and prior to that as Counsel to the Senate Committee on Small Business. Read full bio
Compassion in Action: Contemplative Science and Practice in the Classroom and the World News In March 2024, Batten School Dean Ian Solomon and professors Kirsten Gelsdorf and Abigail Scholer joined dozens of scholars and others from around the world in Dharamsala, India, to meet with the Dalai Lama and explore ways to bring contemplative science and practice into teaching, research, policymaking and leadership in all sectors.
Dean Solomon, Professors Gelsdorf and Scholer to Meet with the Dalai Lama News Dean Ian Solomon and professors Kirsten Gelsdorf and Abigail Scholer will travel to Dharamsala next week with leaders from UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center to spend a week with practitioners and researchers in the contemplative sciences from around the world. They will also have an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Food Security in the Age of COVID-19 News Many Americans take the stability of their food supply for granted, but the pandemic has revealed domestic and global weaknesses in our food systems, one Batten professor argues.