Over two billion people on the planet experienced food insecurity in 2023, including 18 million households in the United States. The actions of one country can affect the food security of others, and global issues such as climate change, military conflicts, and rising food prices can cause supply chain instabilities and shortages. How can we lower the barriers preventing people from accessing stable sources of nutritious food? How do the United States and China, two of the largest food importers and exporters, contribute to local, regional, and global food security? 

Sophia Murphy joins the National Committee in an interview recorded on November 25, 2024, to discuss the meaning and history of food security and how countries, like the United States and China, shape the future of global food security. 

Sophia Murphy

Sophia Murphy is a food systems and international economy expert with 30 years of professional experience, including as a board chair, program director, policy analyst and published writer. A policy expert and advocate who has focused on resilient food systems, agriculture and international trade, Sophia has worked primarily with civil society organizations, as well as with government, intergovernmental organizations and universities. 

Sophia Murphy joined the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) as executive director in October 2020. Sophia originally came to IATP in 1997 as a senior associate to work on trade. For over a decade, she operated a successful independent consultancy business. Most recently, she served as research director and advisor on agriculture, trade and investment within the Economic Law and Policy Program at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Sophia was part of a three-year project called Ceres2030 that assessed the evidence on effective interventions to end hunger, double the incomes of small-scale producers and reduce food systems’ environmental footprint, and developed an economic cost model to look at the public investment needed for those interventions. She served two consecutive terms as a member of the steering committee of the High-Level Panel of Experts to the United Nations Committee on World Food Security.