The world's food systems are struggling. Severe weather from climate change, wars, pests (weeds, disease and insects), and governmental inefficiencies, among other set-backs are to blame. Together, they have created a global food crisis that is enormously tangled. In many nations farmers are struggling with mounting challenges and declining yields, and people are hungry.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), "Moderate or severe food insecurity...now affects more that 30% of the world's population."

The time has come when we simply must drive a renewed focus on a secure food chain that can thrive despite climate change by building business resiliency and applying various technology and business innovations from pre- to post-harvest practices.

Weeds and Pests Love Climate Change

While there are a myriad of reasons why farming and delivering food is more challenging than ever before, treatment-resistant insects, disease (fungus) and weeds are primary contributors to the problem. All are agile, crafty adaptors that have proven time and time again that they can thrive in extreme conditions.

Globally, farmers today are estimated to lose up to 40% of their crops to pests annually, with plant diseases costing the global economy around $220 billion.

More than 600 species of pests worldwide have developed some level of pesticide resistance and continue to thrive. And some pests have simply adapted to techniques such as crop rotation. Larvae of select species of corn rootworm as example, can now wait years until corn is back in the ground to hatch and begin their destructive activities.

Seasonal shifts - such as warmer winters, earlier springs and hotter summers - as well as spikes in extreme weather, and weather-related natural disasters also disrupt typical life cycles and natural limits that confine certain weeds and pests to select regions. Extreme weather is now spreading seeds and spores, delivering well-known crop diseases to new places that have never dealt with them before. What may have once been considered a region-specific concern, now likely deserves to be evaluated as a global ag threat.

In terms of the fungal food threat, nearly 200 crop pathogen species are already resistant to widely used fungicides. While not all fungal diseases wreak as much havoc as Panama disease has for banana crops, as example, the impact of fungal disease on agricultural productivity spans all global cropping systems, from rice fields in Asia, to wheat in Europe, and soybeans in Brazil. With the emergence of new anti-fungal resistant strains of fungal disease, and varieties that thrive in rising temperatures, farmers urgently need new solutions.

When discussing the most critical potential crop threats exacerbated by climate change, it would be remiss to leave out weeds. Weeds like Palmer Amaranth compete with crops for sunlight and nutrients and can destroy crop yield when left uncontrolled. Growers rely on herbicides to control weeds, however, more than 500 weed species are resistant to the most widely used products. Beyond resistance, drought conditions, rising temperatures and carbon dioxide all have a negative impact on herbicide-efficacy.

Across all threats, the concern is clear: Farmers urgently need new tools to grow abundant, healthy crops. And they need to readily produce even higher yields as food demands rise for the global population, which according to UN estimates will swell to. 9.7 billion by 2050.

Innovation Is Abundant

The positive news is that in response to the problem, companies around the globe are seizing the opportunity to discover innovative solutions using new digital technologies, mechanization, as well as safe pesticides and fertilizers, to help farmers grow larger yields of healthier crops. Sifting through the latest FoodTech 500 report, which highlights top innovators based on thousands of applications from agtech and foodtech companies across 50 countries, there is no question that the need for innovative solutions is being recognized around the globe.

On the farm, water sensing systems, climate alerts and soil monitors will inform farmers seeking to farm efficiently and sustainably, but stopping pests and disease from decimating crops is the most significant lever to increasing farm output and food supply. Getting new, safe, and effective crop protection tools into farmers' hands quickly will lead to higher crop yields, and lower food prices for consumers.

Regulatory Challenges

In the United States and around the globe, the studies required by regulators to demonstrate the human and environmental safety of new products take years and cost tens of millions of dollars. Despite the urgent need for intense innovation, regulatory review processes are, for safety reasons, long and complex. This has made the path to market for new treatments painfully slow - and farmers and consumers pay the price in the form of lower yields and more expensive food while they wait.

Regulatory protocols are massive hurdles for innovation, resulting in the fact that many of the pesticides and herbicides farmers use today are the same ones their grandparents used. Under current protocol, a discovery made today might not be available until 2033, or later. In addition to limiting options for farmers, it also means weeds and pests have had decades to develop resistance to approved products.