1.
Tackling World Hunger
For more info, contact us: xeraya@xeraya.com
Follow us: @xerayacapital
www.xeraya.com
Food Security & Sustainability
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
1

2.
Food Security & Sustainability
Content Overview
• What is Food Security?
• Importance of Food Security
• World Hunger Statistics
• Children Affected by Hunger
• Major Drivers of Food
Insecurity
• Potential Solutions
• Agro & Bio-Tech Solutions:
• Pivot Bio (Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria)
• Inscripta (CRISPR Research Tools)
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
2

3.
Physical
Availability
Economic
& Physical
Access
Food
Utilization
Stability
Over Time
What is Food Security ?
Based on the 1996 World
Food Summit:
Food security is defined when all
people, at all times, have physical
and economic access to sufficient
safe and nutritious food that meets
their dietary needs and food
preferences for an active and
healthy life.
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
3
The 4 Dimensions of Food Security
Source: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-
security-update/what-is-food-security

4.
Source: https://www.nifa.usda.gov/topics/global-food-security
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
4
Access to quality, nutritious food is
fundamental to human existence. Secure
access to food can produce wide ranging
positive impacts, including:
• Economic growth and job creation
• Poverty reduction
• Trade opportunities
• Increased global security and stability
• Improved health and healthcare
Importance of Global Food Security

5.
World Hunger Stats
Hungrier by the Millions
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
5

6.
Food Insecurity: By the Numbers
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
828 million people
go to bed hungry
every day
- World hunger affects
almost 10% of the
global population
- 49 million people in 49
countries are teetering
on the edge of famine
World Food Programme
25,000 people
succumb to hunger
every day
Hunger kills more than
HIV/AIDS, malaria & TB
combined.
Increase from 135 to
345 million people
The number of those
facing food insecurity
have soared since 2019
due to the pandemic &
war in Ukraine
Source: Action Against Hunger US, World Food Programme, Earth.org
6
Annual Food
Security
Assessment:
- Sub-Saharan Africa
has highest share of
food-insecure people
(51% of population)
- Latin America &
Caribbean (29%) and
Asia (27%)
- North Africa is least
food insecure (18%)
Economic Research
Service of USDA

7.
Children: Unfortunate Victims of Food Insecurity
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
7
Source: https://www.wfpusa.org/articles/10-facts-child-hunger/
3 MILLION DEATHS
A child dies every 10 seconds
from malnutrition, that’s more
than 3 million deaths every year.
45 MILLION
Children suffer from severe
malnutrition every year. 14
million suffer severe acute
malnutrition.
45% UNDER 5 Y/O
Nearly half of all child deaths
are due to hunger and hunger-
related causes.

8.
Major Drivers of Food Insecurity
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
8
Climate
Change
War &
Conflict
Market
Disparity
Lack of
Farmland
Population
Growth
Food
Wastage
Source: https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-
effects-solutions-food-insecurity.php

9.
Food Supply vs Distribution
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
9
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
- Self-sufficient
- 1.3 billion tonnes of
food wasted every year
(FAO reports)
- Market dominance by
large corporations
UNDER-DEVELOPED
COUNTRIES
- Lack resources to grow
own food, rely on
imported food
- Low-income people
from poor countries lack
access to food
SURPLUS
SHORTAGE
There is more than enough food produced in
the world to feed everyone on the planet. Yet
as many as 828 million people still go hungry.
Source: https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-
effects-solutions-food-insecurity.php

10.
Reduce food waste
Improve local infrastructure
Implement fair trade policies
Promote consumption of locally grown food
Improve crop yield with better land management
Defeat climate change
Potential Solutions Toward Food Security
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
10 Source: https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-
effects-solutions-food-insecurity.php

11.
Agro & Bio Tech solutions
Better Soild Management & Robust Crops
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
11

12.
Sustainable Farming with Clean Nitrogen
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
12
Source: https://www.pivotbio.com/product-proven
Farmers rely heavily on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers
for their crops. Without the use of synthetic nitrogen,
half of the world’s food supply would not exist.
Synthetic nitrogen, however, is causing 2% of
greenhouse emissions while depriving the air of
natural nitrogen.
Pivot Bio is helping farmers to improve nitrogen
fixation in crops with the use of specific microbes,
effectively making crops be more productive,
profitable, and sustainable.
Credit: Pivot Bio

13.
Sustainable Alternative to Synthetic Nitrogen
Nitrogen-fixing microbes in
Pivot Bio PROVEN® produce
ammonia with minimal carbon
footprint (98.8% fewer GHG
emissions per ton).
140 million tons of ammonia are
produced each year (releasing 3x
the amount of CO2), and 75% of that
is used to make synthetic nitrogen
fertilizer for crops.
Pivot Bio PROVEN® 40 consistently
outperforms synthetic nitrogen
fertilizer year-over-year.
Source: https://blog.pivotbio.com/98-cleaner-corn
Credit: Nefronus (Wikipedia)
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
13
Microbes make their ammonia with renewable energy
(sugars made by photosynthesis and exuded by the
plant). Their nitrogenase proteins process natural
nitrogen (N2) into ammonia (NH3) efficiently.

14.
Source: https://www.fdli.org/2021/11/the-future-of-food-crispr-edited-agriculture/
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
14
CRISPR technology is a powerful
gene editing tool that allows
researchers to alter DNA
sequences and modify gene
function in animals or plants
more easily.
CRISPR enables desirable crop
traits by introducing DNA from
nature-generated genetic
variations within the crop itself,
and not some foreign DNA that
is reproductively incompatible.
Leveraging CRISPR for Better Food Security
Credit: NHGRI

15.
Using CRISPR to Improve Crops
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
15
Base
Strain
Resilience
Longer
lasting
Disease
resistance
Yield
Increase
Harvest
Yinong Yang (Penn State University, 2016)
'turned off' gene in mushroom to prevent it
from browning quickly. González et al.
(2020) reduced browning in potatoes.
Zafar et al. (2020) reported on enhancing
disease resistance towards Xanthomonas
oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), a pathogen
causing bacterial blight in rice.
Sources: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2021.672329/full
& https://www.newscientist.com/article/2313582-rice-and-maize-yields-
boosted-up-to-10-per-cent-by-crispr-gene-editing/
Xiaohong Yang (China Agricultural
University Beijing, 2022) reported increase
in grain yield by 10% in maize and 8% in
rice by using CRISPR gene editing to
switch off 'undesired' genes.

16.
Inscripta: Next-gen bio-Engineering for Researchers
Inscripta®'s GenoScaler™ & Lean
Bioengineering™ combines directed
evolution, CRISPR, and machine
learning to make biomanufacturing
scalable, cost-effective, and safe.
Engineering biology is slow, laborious, and
expensive. Inscripta’s proprietary platform
achieves results 400,000x faster with 100x
higher possibility of success, and reduces
development costs by 10-fold.
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
16
Credit: Inscripta
Source: https://www.inscripta.com/genoscaler-platform
Inscripta also released the MAD7 nuclease to
the global research community in 2017 under a
broad technology access program to
democratize access to CRISPR.

17.
• There is more than enough food produced in the world, yet as
many as 828 million people still go hungry.
• 25,000 people succumb to hunger every day (more than 9
million per year), and 3 million of them are children.
• The COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war
has affected the world’s supply, pushing hundreds of millions
of people into food insecurity.
• Food security can be achieved by reducing food waste, better
land management and defeating climate change.
Conclusion
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
17

18.
• Pivot Bio has developed nitrogen-fixing bacteria for farmers,
eliminating the need for synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.
• Inscripta is providing researchers with scalable bio-
engineering tools through combination of CRISPR & machine
learning; making crops more resilient and have better yield.
Conclusion
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
18

19.
By xeraya capital
For more info, contact us: xeraya@xeraya.com
Follow us: @xerayacapital
www.xeraya.com
January 2023. © Xeraya Capital.
19