Agricultural systems are one of the biggest contributors to climate change, producing about 20% of total global emissions. At the same time, the single biggest threat of climate change is the collapse of global food systems. As the world population grows, the climate heats up and resources become more scarce, how will we ensure we have enough food to go around?

Science is being combined with agriculture to develop new crops that can withstand the impacts of climate change. A group working at the forefront of this collaboration is CGIAR System Organization, formerly known as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the world’s largest publicly-funded agricultural research partnership. But this area needs to be scaled up; CGIAR says double the amount of the current level of investment is needed to slow down the food and climate crises facing the planet by 2030.

On the side-lines of the UN’s 2021 Climate Adaptation Summit, TIME speaks with Agnes Kalibata, the Rwandan-born agricultural scientist and policymaker who was recently appointed as UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ special envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit. The summit will call for bold action to transform the way the world produces and consumes food, while providing solutions and delivering progress on Sustainable Development Goals. Kalibata, a former minister for agriculture in Rwanda, played a large role in bringing food security to the mostly agricultural country. In an interview edited for edited for length and clarity, Kalibata discusses new food technologies, the future of farming, and why eating insects, while good for human and planetary health, is likely to remain a fringe idea for the foreseeable future.

TIME: Climate scientists are projecting future devastation if we don’t act now to curb emissions. But are we already seeing an impact on the ground when it comes to farming and food supplies?

Agnes Kalibata: We’ve seen huge impact on food in countries that are in marginal areas [such as the Sahel, on the fringe of the Sahara Desert], where farming systems depend on rainfall and rainfall has become less predictable. So for these communities that are living on the edge, [climate change] has impacted food security. We’ve seen average losses of 20%. That reduction takes away everything a farmer would have in term of income.

TIME: So if these climatic changes are inevitable, how do we make farmers and food systems more resilient?
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