Efrata Woldeyohanes, BSc(AgEnvSc)’24, found her spark at McGill when she switched her major to global food security.
Growing up in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, she saw severe food insecurity – people begging on the street but without access to food banks like in Canada.
“Since I was a child, I always said I wanted to build my own NGO that specifically works to end food insecurity,” says Woldeyohanes, who immigrated to Canada with her family at age 10, and is now a master’s student in the Bioresource Engineering Department. Her hope is to establish the NGO in Ethiopia.
“That's my main goal – to help people because no one deserves to be hungry.”
She envisions an organization that provides long-term solutions – a hub for different stakeholders to connect and collaborate, to come together in one place.
Food security is a basic human need yet remains unmet for millions around the globe. More than 295 million people experienced acute hunger in 2024 – an increase of 13.7 million from 2023, according to a report shared by the World Food Programme.
Finding sustainable, long-term solutions to the global food and nutrition crisis has been the raison d’être of the Margaret A. Gilliam Institute for Global Food Security since its launch. As it marks its 15th anniversary this fall, its mission is more critical than ever.
“Food insecurity has become a global crisis,” in both developing and developed countries, says Professor Patrick Cortbaoui, BSc(FSc)’03, MSc’05, PhD’15, the Institute’s Senior Managing Director.
It’s also rising in Canada in an unprecedented way. Some 10 million people experienced food insecurity in 2023 and many are First Nations, Cortbaoui notes.
While he is disturbed that so many people in Canada, especially youth, cannot afford to eat healthy food, he also finds reason to be heartened. He refers to recent provincial and federal policies to provide incentives and startup funds for local producers.
The Institute and its wide-ranging work are of course another cause for hope, and for real-world solutions.
‘Changing the lives of the most vulnerable’
First established in 2010, the Institute for Global Food Security was renamed in honour of McGill graduate Margaret A. Gilliam, BSc’59, after a $5-million gift in 2018 that built on a $1.5-million donation in 2012.
“An incredible number of people all over the world are hungry, and I want to do something meaningful to help,” Gilliam said in explaining her motivation.
“She’s an incredible person,” says Cortbaoui, “and she's a visionary: she's changing the lives of the most vulnerable.”
The Institute tackles complex issues through multidisciplinary approaches – sustainable and nutrition-sensitive agricultural practices, strategies against food waste, food safety and health, and climate resilience and mitigation strategies.
The primary goal is to advance agriculture while conserving natural resources; the formidable puzzle, “to feed the entire population more sustainably,” says Cortbaoui.
Youth powering sustainable progress
The Institute’s collaborations with the Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network, the Nkabom Collaborative, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) SAGA 2 project are helping to empower youth to innovate and advocate for sustainable food systems globally.
“What kind of special skills do we need to give them so we can bring them back to agriculture and change their mindset to become agripreneurs,” says Cortbaoui.
The Institute is also engaged with policymakers and stakeholders to prioritize nutrition-sensitive agriculture: producing nutritious agriculture, not simply focusing on yield for profit.
Margaret Gilliam flanked by Salwa Karboune (left), Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and President Deep Saini (right)
Raising awareness about the importance of food security, nutrition and global health objectives is important for Woldeyohanes personally.
Her master’s work is focused on assessing how migration affects dietary habits. She thrives working with and hearing from people. She also volunteers at a local food bank. As an undergraduate she founded and led the Margaret A. Gilliam Institute for Global Food Security Student Nexus, which works with the Institute on educational campaigns and events.
“The students are thirsty to contribute in their free time,” says Cortbaoui of the Student Nexus.
For Woldeyohanes, it allowed her to pursue her passion to advocate for food security while developing new leadership skills.
“I was out of my comfort zone… but it made me more confident to take on larger and complex leadership tasks.”
“Education is not just about going to classes,” she emphasizes, citing her experience in internships – including with the Minister of Agriculture in Ethiopia – and working as a research assistant at the Institute as invaluable enhancements to her education and career path.
A food-secure future
Sovereignty is a key ingredient when it comes to building food security and resiliency for people and countries in need – as is new perspectives on what we mean by food insecurity. Cortbaoui explains, for instance, that obese and overweight people are also considered food insecure, and that the Institute wants to change the paradigm where unhealthy food is easy and affordable to access while healthy food is less so.
Cortbaoui also hopes to collaborate with a remote Indigenous community in Quebec on indoor farming, which would require local buy-in. “My objective is not to do a project for them, it’s to build their own capacities, so they can train the trainees,” he says.
Globally, the Institute is also involved with cultivating high-yield crops that can resist the effects of climate change, whether that means the impact of drought or the devastation of flooding.
Cortbaoui is inspired by the people he meets from communities around the world. He marvels at how much he’s learned from them.
“They tell me, ‘Don’t tell us how to grow our own food. We know how to do it. We’ve been doing it for years. If you want to help us, maybe you can stop corruption, help us in building infrastructures, help put us in contact with the markets so we can sell our produce, and stop the standards imposed by the mega-farms.’”
As the ways in which food is produced evolve, there’s an important and emerging role for digital agriculture and artificial intelligence – whether it’s through predictive models that help reduce food loss and waste, or using natural resources in more efficient ways.
“The idea here is to give youth access to the high tech without replacing or diluting their critical thinking,” Cortbaoui says. “To incubate them, to give them these opportunities.”