Princeton’s vital research across the spectrum of environmental issues is 

today and will continue to be pivotal to solving some of humanity’s toughest 

problems. Our impact is built on a long, deep, broad legacy of personal 
commitment, intellectual leadership, perseverance and innovation. This 
article is part of a series to present the sweep of Princeton’s environmental 
excellence over the past half-century. 
 
 
 
  
 
In 1995, ​Timothy Searchinger​ found himself in Washington, 
D.C., poring over the United States Farm Bill. An 
environmental lawyer and policy expert on wetlands 
restoration at the time, Searchinger discovered an obscure 
provision in the Farm Bill that would allow states to direct 
funding toward conservation efforts. While his efforts led to 
the restoration of approximately 2 million acres of land back 
into environmentally valuable riparian buffers and wetlands, 
his work on the Farm Bill led to another equally important 
personal discovery. 
 
“Here was this huge swath of the middle of the country 
that’s practically all agricultural land, but hardly anyone from 
the national environmental community was studying the 
broader impact of agriculture at the time,” recalled 
Searchinger. This realization drove him to become one of 
just a handful of experts focusing on agriculture in relation to other pressing global 
environmental and socioeconomic issues. “Food is a critical and overlooked 
environmental issue that has a massive impact on planetary health,” said Searchinger. 
“It’s related to everything from climate change to biodiversity loss to questions of 
poverty and migration.” 
 
Two decades later, now a research scholar at Princeton’s​ Center for Policy Research on 
Energy and the Environment​, Searchinger’s​ work today​ combines ecology and 
economics to analyze the challenge of how to feed a world population that’s expected 
to grow by 2 billion people over the next 30 years, while reducing deforestation and 
greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Searchinger was lead author of a series of 
five papers in the journals Science and Nature from 2008 to 2018 that recalculated the 
greenhouse gas emissions of biofuel and food production to include the cost of using 
land that could otherwise be storing more carbon in natural habitats. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In 2019, he was lead author of a monumental report for the World 
Bank, United Nations and World Resources Institute that firmly 
establishes food and agriculture as a lynchpin global 
environment issue.​ The report​ provides a comprehensive, 
detailed “menu” of 22 specific solutions that should be deployed 
to meet rising food needs in socially equitable ways while 
avoiding further agricultural land conversion and reducing 
greenhouse gas emissions. “It would be difficult to overestimate 
the impact of Searchinger’s work in this field,” said​ Denise 
Mauzerall​, professor of civil and environmental engineering and 
public and international affairs. 
 
The report also captures the distinctive strength of Princeton’s 
growing group of researchers who focus on the topic. “We view food and agriculture as 
part of a larger environmental system where every part of the system affects all the 
others,” said ​Daniel Rubenstein​, the Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology and professor 
of ecology and evolutionary biology. “How we use land for food production also affects 
greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, urban sustainability, human migration, and so 
many other areas. Food touches every part of human existence, providing a way of 
making people aware that how they eat can do much environmental good.” In addition 
to teaching the course “Agriculture, Human Diets and the Environment” at the​ Princeton 
Environmental Institute​, Rubenstein’s own research on food has explored how humans 
and animals share landscapes and manage access to food. 

“Princeton is unusual in focusing on food primarily from this broad, environmental 

perspective,” said Searchinger. 

Few other universities are able to embed their food research in such a deep and 
interdisciplinary culture of excellence in the environmental field as Princeton has 
developed over the last half-century. Food studies may be the newest part of this 
long-standing environmental focus, but it’s part of a legacy that stretches back more 
than 50 years. 
Food and biodiversity 
One of Princeton’s environmental luminaries who attracted Searchinger to the University 
is​ David Wilcove​, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs and 
the Princeton Environmental Institute. 

In the mid-2000s, Wilcove viewed the explosive growth of 

palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia with alarm. 
Developers were clear-cutting tropical forests to grow palms 
that produced an oil commonly used as a cooking oil and in 
processed foods and beauty products and, increasingly, as a 
biofuel. The world’s insatiable appetite for this cheap oil 
eventually led to millions of acres of deforestation — 
releasing CO​2​ from forests while devastating regional 
biodiversity. 

Wilcove and graduate student Lian Pin Koh were among the 
first to quantify the extent to which forests were being 
destroyed for oil palm production and the biodiversity costs 
associated with converting forests for agricultural purposes. Their research helped 
prioritize palm oil agriculture as one of the most pressing issues for tropical 
conservation efforts. Wilcove’s research group continues to study opportunities to work 
with farmers to support biodiversity across the globe, including some of his most​ ​recent 
work​ in the Western Amazonia of Peru. 

“Land is a finite resource,” said Searchinger. “It needs to serve many growing purposes, 
including producing far more food for an increasing population, storing more carbon to 
address climate change and conserving the world’s diverse species. The only way we 
can do all three is more efficient use of land, meaning more food, more carbon and 
more biodiversity per acre.” 
Food and greenhouse gas emissions 

Other major groups on campus have taken 

different approaches to studying food. As 
Searchinger points out, agricultural 
activities account for about one-quarter of 
current global greenhouse gas emissions, 
creating cause for concern in light of 
growing populations. 

“We must find ways to produce more food 

without expanding agricultural land or using significantly more nitrogen fertilizer in 
order to both protect biodiversity and reduce air pollutant and greenhouse gas 
emissions,” said Denise Mauzerall, whose work as an atmospheric scientist and policy 
expert spans energy, agriculture, air pollution and human health. Mauzerall’s group has 
studied the air quality and climate benefits of increasing the efficiency of nitrogen 
fertilizer use so that yields are maintained while emissions of air pollutants and 
greenhouse gases are reduced. Her group is also studying the potential benefits of 
shifting diets to include less beef and dairy products, the production of which lead to 
substantial emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. 

Meanwhile, through the​ Carbon Mitigation Initiative​, interdisciplinary teams of Princeton 

faculty and researchers are working to develop more nuanced understandings of the 
mechanics of how plants, water and soils interact across a variety of landscapes. Their 
emerging research explores how agricultural practices and land management can be 
harnessed to optimize natural carbon storage in plants and soils, explained J
​ onathan 
Levine​, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and​ Amilcare Porporato​, the 
Thomas J. Wu ’94 Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 
“There’s a lot of attention on cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector, 
but way less attention to agricultural emissions,” said Searchinger. “If we don’t 
aggressively push innovations and link increased crop yields with forest protection, we’ll 
blow past our overall 2050 emissions targets.” 

But what happens when the rains slacken and food yields 
decline where they used to flourish? Increased migration 
from areas suffering climate impacts, according to​ Michael 
Oppenheimer​, the Albert G. Milbank Professor of 
Geosciences and International Affairs and the Princeton 
Environmental Institute. 

“Falling crop yields in certain places will have a big impact 

on where people live in the future, so it’s critical that 
governments start to plan for these shifts now,” 
Oppenheimer said. “At the same time some of the most 
vulnerable people may lack necessary financial resources 
and are compelled to remain in increasingly perilous circumstances.” 

Oppenheimer’s group has studied the potential effects of climate variability on 
migration within countries and across international borders, including Mexico-US 
migration and internal migration within South Africa. 

In the coming decades, many more people will be migrating to and living in cities. So 
what might these shifts portend for urban food systems and their environmental 
footprint? 

 
 
Food and cities 
With more than two-thirds of the world’s population 
expected to live in cities by 2050, urban sustainability will 
have an enormous impact on the global environment, 
especially food systems and land use. 

“Food and infrastructure are so important — they’re the 

anchor sectors. Without them, we just can’t live in cities,” 
said​ Anu Ramaswami​, the Sanjay Swami ’87 Professor of 
India Studies and professor of civil and environmental 
engineering, the Princeton Institute for International and 
Regional Studies, and the Princeton Environmental 
Institute. 

For more than 20 years, Ramaswami has been helping cities map their environmental 
footprint and develop strategies for climate action. Strategic interventions in urban food 
systems are critical to achieve environmentally ​sustainable, healthy, and more equitable 
cities​, says Ramaswami. Her group’s​ recent research​ finds that dietary changes and 
improved food waste management would have the greatest benefits in shrinking cities’ 
food footprints. 

“The way that cities access and consume food is a massive lever for global changes to 
food systems and their environmental impact,” said ​Dana Boyer​, lead scientist of Urban 
Food Systems in the Princeton​ Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Systems Lab​. 

Cities are interested in improving the sustainability of their food systems, but they don’t 
always know what changes to make or where to start, says Boyer. Working with cities to 
gather information and understand their priorities, she and Ramaswami can then help 
develop concrete recommendations using the latest science and modeling. This 
approach harnesses both community participation and data-driven research to yield 
more sustainable outcomes. 

Food systems are connected to so many other issues: human health, equity, culture, 
justice, the economy, and overall resilience, said Boyer. “Our work ties all of these 
factors together into a food action plan, with the goal of building more sustainable, 
healthier cities.” 

Food resilience 
There might have been very few people studying food from a global environmental 
perspective back when Searchinger began his research in this area, but in the last few 
years at Princeton, momentum has been building around the study of the 
food-energy-water nexus. 

Recently the Princeton Environmental Institute established a multi-year F

​ ood and the 
Environment Initiative​ in collaboration with the S
​ tockholm Resilience Center​ and the 
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research​. This new initiative focuses on the 
resilience of food systems, including ecological, policy and human dimensions. 

“The study of food shows us just how interconnected biological systems and human 
societies are,” said S
​ imon Levin​, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University 
Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “Understanding what makes food and 
agricultural systems resilient will be critical for adapting to growing demand and 
increased environmental pressures,” he said. 

With postdoctoral fellow Andrew Carlson, Levin and Rubenstein have ​recently studied 
the resilience of New Jersey dairy farms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 
Across all of these areas, Princeton’s research on food continues to be defined by the 
central question: How do you feed the world without increasing emissions, fueling 
biodiversity loss and deforestation, or deepening inequality and poverty? 

“Pursuing any one of these goals to the exclusion of the others will likely result in failure 
to achieve any of them,” said Searchinger. 

Princeton’s cross-cutting and interdisciplinary approach to studying food will be key to 
finding the right solutions in the coming decades.