Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another special edition of Stephanomics from
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore. Today, we're going
Speaker 1: to play you a wide ranging debate I had on
Speaker 1: a pretty fundamental question, how do we feed the world
Speaker 1: and also save the planet? The speakers were all able
Speaker 1: to provide a different piece of the answer. You'll get
Speaker 1: a better sense of that from my introduction to the session,
Speaker 1: which we're going to play in a second. But just
Speaker 1: so you know who you're listening to, I should say
Speaker 1: the first speaker was Aloysius Atta, co founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of farmer Line, company that works with hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of farmers across Africa. And then next it was David mcclennan,
Speaker 1: chairman and CEO of Cargill, one of the world's biggest
Speaker 1: agricultural conglomerates. Then Walter Bowman, chairman and CEO of the
Speaker 1: German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, and finally Sarah Menka, CEO and
Speaker 1: founder of the data intelligence company grow Intelligence. How do
Speaker 1: we feed the world? The tools we have as a
Speaker 1: planet for answering that question, like so much else we've
Speaker 1: been discussing over the last few days, has had changed
Speaker 1: radically in the last ten or twenty years. The technology,
Speaker 1: the underlying technology, the data, the intricate global supply networks
Speaker 1: have all changed. But we know that the climate, the
Speaker 1: environment has also been changing before our eyes, and it's
Speaker 1: changing almost by the day, making the challenge harder in
Speaker 1: in many ways, we've already got crop yields affected, severely
Speaker 1: affected by climate change, and some of the most vulnerable
Speaker 1: economies in the United Nations predicts average crop yields could
Speaker 1: fall by thirty if we don't change, even as the
Speaker 1: demand for food by increases by So that's the long
Speaker 1: term challenge. But as I've increasingly realized talking to our panelists,
Speaker 1: there is a short term crisis in the agricultural supply
Speaker 1: chain that has just unfolded in the last few months.
Speaker 1: Is now raising real questions, particularly for for farmers on
Speaker 1: the ground, not just for thirty percent rise in food
Speaker 1: prices that we know about, but fertilizer prices going to
Speaker 1: an all time hi how do we feed the world
Speaker 1: in this changing environment. We've got all pieces of that
Speaker 1: agricultural supply chain represented here, the science behind the resources
Speaker 1: that farmers use. Someone who works closely with farmers, the
Speaker 1: businesses that get the food the crops from farms around
Speaker 1: the world, and now the data we have to try
Speaker 1: and solve that question more intelligently. Eloss I mentioned at
Speaker 1: the start this this crisis related to fertilizer prices that
Speaker 1: I think some people at least in this room would
Speaker 1: not be fully aware of. Just paints a picture of that.
Speaker 1: What's the situation right now, what's the challenge that farmers
Speaker 1: are facing today? Thanks thanks for the question, um so
Speaker 1: our focuse my opinion on small skill farmers in places
Speaker 1: like Africa. The reason is that they are often not
Speaker 1: in the middle of most conversations and they struggle to
Speaker 1: ask us high quality fertilizing seeds just to give contest.
Speaker 1: Fertilizers like mp GE were invented like of our hundred
Speaker 1: years ago. African farmers currently only able to apply about
Speaker 1: wing kilograms pertector while their counterparts in the rest of
Speaker 1: the world apply overwhelming twenty kilograms. So they struggle, but
Speaker 1: at the same time they are tasked with this in
Speaker 1: the most responsibility of feeding one tail of the world today.
Speaker 1: If you look at the situation happening in Madagascar right now,
Speaker 1: where for the first time in our modern history where
Speaker 1: there is farming and there is a fear of food
Speaker 1: insecurity for close to a million people. And this is
Speaker 1: not caused by war, but it's caused entirely by climate change.
Speaker 1: The time is now to come up with innovation and
Speaker 1: services that actually ensures that small scale farmers in places
Speaker 1: like Africa actually get high quality of tidence is on
Speaker 1: time and the support that they need to grow more
Speaker 1: food to feed the future. And Davian mclearend just thinking
Speaker 1: about to say that the short term situation, how how
Speaker 1: bad is it? I think the food and egg system
Speaker 1: has proven to be very resilient, perhaps surprisingly resilient. I
Speaker 1: think it underscores the importance and the benefits of an
Speaker 1: interconnected food supply system. So we've been able to get
Speaker 1: food from where it's produced to where it's needed, with
Speaker 1: some exceptions that have been spot shortages. There's been disruptions.
Speaker 1: But you talk Stephanie about the impact of climate change
Speaker 1: and you think about reduced yields, there's also the components
Speaker 1: of climate volatility, for example, increased hurricanes. So one disruptive
Speaker 1: event that we were impacted by was the hurricane that
Speaker 1: hit the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana early in the fall,
Speaker 1: which we lost two of our facilities where we load
Speaker 1: the grain that comes down the Mississippi River put it
Speaker 1: onto barges or two ships to get it out, and
Speaker 1: we were shut down for several weeks. We have one
Speaker 1: facility that is still getting up and running. So, notwithstanding
Speaker 1: the inevitable natural disasters coming from climate volatility, by and large,
Speaker 1: the food supply chain has worked pretty well in the
Speaker 1: last year or so with COVID, But nonetheless it's something
Speaker 1: we cannot take for granted. Berna Berman, I've talked about
Speaker 1: people at different stages of the fire chain. New fundamental
Speaker 1: to the science, the products that farmers are putting into
Speaker 1: their ground. How is how is that piece of the
Speaker 1: challenge changed in recent years. There are three things that
Speaker 1: are really important. Number one is that agriculture has become
Speaker 1: more sustainable. Yeah, now more than ever if you look
Speaker 1: at the massive impacts that climate change is going to
Speaker 1: have on all of us, and that means that climate
Speaker 1: that agriculture has to contribute its part to remove of
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases. So we have to find these solutions. The
Speaker 1: second one is um that we have to reduce the
Speaker 1: footprint that is being used by agriculture while at the
Speaker 1: same time increasing yields because as you mentioned, we need
Speaker 1: to produce much more food in the next twenty thirty
Speaker 1: years in order to feed to growing population. So increase
Speaker 1: while at the same time, as a minimum, not increasing acreage,
Speaker 1: but ideally bringing more intensification on existing acreage, while at
Speaker 1: the same time freeing up acreage for reforestation and comments aquestration.
Speaker 1: And the last thing is that we have to find
Speaker 1: much more resilience in agriculture systems, which means, um you know,
Speaker 1: better varieties that can stand drought, your other properties that
Speaker 1: will plan make plants more resilient, and with that create
Speaker 1: your better and more predictable harvards all together. So the
Speaker 1: two examples I would give, since you also touched on
Speaker 1: on fertilizer, is that your fertilizer has been a real
Speaker 1: blessing to modern society because without the invention of nitrogen
Speaker 1: fertilizer about hundred years ago, we wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: feed the people that we have on the planet today.
Speaker 1: Having said that, after a hundred years, there may be
Speaker 1: you know, the next big revolution coming that is informed
Speaker 1: by biology on one side and bio technology and on
Speaker 1: the other side by artificially intelligence. That's what people call
Speaker 1: the bio revolution. And what we're working on specifically is
Speaker 1: to find ways to teach plants to fixate nitrogen out
Speaker 1: of the year rather than having it produced and then
Speaker 1: put on the acre, which is a huge contributor to
Speaker 1: global warming because that alone accounts for about four percent
Speaker 1: of greenhouse gas production annually. The second piece that is
Speaker 1: equally important is when it comes to resilience of plants. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, in the sixties there was you know, one
Speaker 1: of the big then called green revolutions that was driven
Speaker 1: by the inventions of sir normal bollock with a shorter
Speaker 1: growing and more resilient wheat that tripled the yield in India.
Speaker 1: Today we are working on something similar in corn. We
Speaker 1: are a short statue of corn which is less susceptible
Speaker 1: to lodging and which can be planted much more denser, yeah,
Speaker 1: and can also yield Other agriculture practice is the next
Speaker 1: big thing to come, and you know we've started that
Speaker 1: with your some preproduction launches in um in Mexico and
Speaker 1: we are scaling up over the next years to come.
Speaker 1: So those are the answers that we're working on with
Speaker 1: with our people, Saramanca. When we think about sort of
Speaker 1: squaring the circle, where does where does data and where
Speaker 1: does where does grave intelligence come in? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: in some ways, I think the answer is capital. Right,
Speaker 1: all of this is going to cost money, and that
Speaker 1: money comes with risk, and you have to price the
Speaker 1: risk associated with the capital that gets deployed. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the example I gave you was I was
Speaker 1: in my past life and an energy trader, and when
Speaker 1: I first started trading oil and gas, if a producer
Speaker 1: came and wanted to hedge oil two years forward, it
Speaker 1: was very difficult for us to go out into the
Speaker 1: market and sell that two years forward. By the time
Speaker 1: I left to start grow, we could sell it ten
Speaker 1: twenty years forward. That funded all sorts of innovations in
Speaker 1: the energy market that made things like shale oil, shale
Speaker 1: gas possible. Gas prices went down, coal got priced out
Speaker 1: of the market, renewables became a possibility, so that there
Speaker 1: was really long term changes that happened because capital flowed well.
Speaker 1: Capital flows well when there is good information, and so
Speaker 1: data becomes necessary infrastructure for driving transformation and change, because
Speaker 1: this change is going to require lots and lots of
Speaker 1: capital and lots of long term capital, and agriculture capital
Speaker 1: today is too short term. I mean I think that
Speaker 1: and and data is infrastructure, which is just view it
Speaker 1: as a highway. Probably Bloomberg is the one company that
Speaker 1: you don't have to give elected to about the importance
Speaker 1: of data and the impact the power of data and
Speaker 1: transparency in pricing, in in fueling a whole global company.
Speaker 1: Let's lean anything else that the capital piece. I know, Alosius,
Speaker 1: you're that's one of the things that you're focused on
Speaker 1: trying to bring to farmers, So just explain that. But well,
Speaker 1: so the lists of funding for most farmers, and you
Speaker 1: know in place like Ghana is mostly banks. Banks required
Speaker 1: farmas to bring some form of cola trying in order
Speaker 1: to ask as capital. That alone is a limiting FATA
Speaker 1: on how much money farmas can get. And farmasing need
Speaker 1: money for front a few things they need money to
Speaker 1: ask as deferiti, Lisa and seats um and without affordable capital,
Speaker 1: without enough blended capital around, farmers alre often constrained on
Speaker 1: the amount of fertilize that they can get to tell
Speaker 1: the alliance grow more food and make more money. So
Speaker 1: there's a massive opportunity, you know, to food a gap
Speaker 1: and that's what farmer Line does. We digitized O by
Speaker 1: million farmers and we finance farmers and we use alternative
Speaker 1: data sources to give us information about the farmer and
Speaker 1: that allows us to take risk in giving them money
Speaker 1: to purchase fertililliance seeds. That allows us to purchase their
Speaker 1: food cross at the end of the season so that
Speaker 1: they can make more money. But were one company, we
Speaker 1: can't do it all. So there's a need for governments.
Speaker 1: There's a need for BEERFCE corporations to come together and
Speaker 1: find new ways to make capital affordable for farmers so
Speaker 1: they can be able to get all the tools that
Speaker 1: they need in order to grow more food, you know,
Speaker 1: to feed the future. But how much is so when
Speaker 1: Berna Berman talks about the technological solutions of how do
Speaker 1: you use you want to use less acred, you want
Speaker 1: to reforest, you want to have the how much does
Speaker 1: that figure in the day to day calculations of the
Speaker 1: farmers that you work with, your your count down to
Speaker 1: training you know, and and giving our information to farmers. Right, So,
Speaker 1: the biggest challenge today is that the information that actually
Speaker 1: exists is in it's in English, it's in its online,
Speaker 1: it's not informers that farmers can easily understand. And if
Speaker 1: you pass information down to a farmer and you don't
Speaker 1: train them properly, um, if there's no proper training, there
Speaker 1: can be in a change in behavior, and there's no
Speaker 1: training in behavior, they will not be any adoption. So
Speaker 1: the transition from both practices to climate smart practices actually
Speaker 1: slows down. So there is massive room to figure out
Speaker 1: a way to use digital tools to offer information to
Speaker 1: farmers in the language and the format that they can
Speaker 1: easily understand. GNA alone has fifty eight local languages, fifty
Speaker 1: Nigeria has two hundred. So if you want to be
Speaker 1: able to communicate, um, you know, you know how to
Speaker 1: use SIS well, how to uh you know plants to
Speaker 1: reduce the impacts of climates on the soil, and you
Speaker 1: need to be able to meet it from a way
Speaker 1: they are and look, our language is one of the
Speaker 1: ways to go giving them information in the language I
Speaker 1: understand and leriaging. They trust network that is around farm
Speaker 1: is the agents in their community destination officers. Those are
Speaker 1: still very relevant. David, I mean I think that the
Speaker 1: problem is often that the resources will go to the
Speaker 1: developed markets. You go where the money is. And actually
Speaker 1: when it comes to something certainly we know the environmental
Speaker 1: challenges is the greatest in the places where perhaps the
Speaker 1: market opportunity has been smallest in the past or less obvious.
Speaker 1: So how I mean, are we doing enough to help
Speaker 1: farmers do this kind of innovation? Are we spending enough
Speaker 1: time in capital where it's near the most answers know?
Speaker 1: And particularly in Africa, I mean Ala Wishes a very
Speaker 1: descriptive spokesperson of what can be done in Africa for example,
Speaker 1: So years of guys in Zambia where we are, we
Speaker 1: have we had a farmer training program at the time
Speaker 1: and they apply their fertilizer with a bottle cap from
Speaker 1: a soda bottle, and so you can, you can and
Speaker 1: you can triple and quadruple yields by here's modern fertilizer technique.
Speaker 1: Here's when you should bring your crops to market, Here's
Speaker 1: how you can store them effectively. Here's modern watering techniques,
Speaker 1: building up burms so to prevent erosion. But the scalability
Speaker 1: at a small scale, working with farmers, and so I've
Speaker 1: listened to each one of the panelists, it all comes
Speaker 1: back to the farmer, whether it's data or seed technology.
Speaker 1: To Sarah's point about getting better data to help to
Speaker 1: allowish is talking about training. That's where it begins. It's
Speaker 1: not just yields, but it's also in terms of sustainability,
Speaker 1: which is a topic I would imagine we'll start we'll
Speaker 1: talk about in a few minutes. I feel like we're
Speaker 1: talking about it now. Um. But then you mentioned the
Speaker 1: revel green Revolution, and obviously there's been at stages in
Speaker 1: the last thursy or forty years where that kind of
Speaker 1: innovation has been called introversial. That's been questions about the
Speaker 1: impact of it GMOs whether sort of latest round of that. UM.
Speaker 1: I would say the debate has been reopened by the
Speaker 1: urgency of some of the challenges that we're facing on
Speaker 1: the climate front. Yeah. Yeah, that that that's an interesting one. Stephanie.
Speaker 1: The first question is has that controversy been going on
Speaker 1: for the right reasons or not? And if you die
Speaker 1: back to when the controversy around GMO began, it was
Speaker 1: actually a discussion that originated a green piece when it
Speaker 1: came to the next big campaign, yea that you could
Speaker 1: spook most people with, Yeah, and which better area to
Speaker 1: do that. Then with food that's where had started. You said, hey,
Speaker 1: we have to go after that or against that technology
Speaker 1: because that's a frank and foods that's that's a fantastic
Speaker 1: fundraising opportunity. And what they did with it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: depending on who you talked to today, they will also
Speaker 1: acknowledge it is that they prevented an awful lot of people,
Speaker 1: you are, from having the benefits of that technology. In
Speaker 1: particularly if you look at, for example, vitamin A and
Speaker 1: rich rice golden rice that has been deregulated and improved
Speaker 1: in a number of countries by now, that would have
Speaker 1: prevented many, many many kids from you know, getting blind
Speaker 1: because of that vitamin deficiency. So having said that, I
Speaker 1: think there's an increasing acknowledgement of how important that technology
Speaker 1: is for a number of reasons. Also when it comes
Speaker 1: to so standable farming practices and obviously today both with
Speaker 1: traditional gmore and then on the horizon new modern breeding technologies,
Speaker 1: which means applying new technology such as crisper cass gene
Speaker 1: editing for position breeding that is quote unquote nature identical
Speaker 1: and not translandic. Uh. This is something that we see
Speaker 1: with let's say renewed openness also when it comes to deregulation.
Speaker 1: And before we entered the stage, I was talking to
Speaker 1: a large use that we see that now happening in Frica,
Speaker 1: which is interesting that Africa takes the lead here is
Speaker 1: some of these approvals now in in Ghana and I
Speaker 1: area were actually Europe is falling behind. We have it
Speaker 1: in North America, we have been Latin America, and Europe
Speaker 1: has been which has been a little bit agnostic to
Speaker 1: some of these modern technologies for the wrong reasons. It's
Speaker 1: falling behind. But there's hope that we'll catch up also
Speaker 1: with new legislation that might be uh, you know, coming
Speaker 1: over the next years. David on the just on the
Speaker 1: g M A piece and if it's not everyone's popular
Speaker 1: favorite subject, but when you think when you talk about
Speaker 1: the long term picture is it does it have to
Speaker 1: be part of the story for all of the discomfort
Speaker 1: somehow it absolutely does. So, I mean, I'm about to
Speaker 1: start my ninth year in this job. So when I
Speaker 1: first started in this role, GMOs were the hot topic,
Speaker 1: whether it be protesters and literature, and we could not
Speaker 1: figure out why because ultimately GMOs I mean they got
Speaker 1: branded frank and food, but Ultimately, they have been behind
Speaker 1: since the ninth you know, early part of the of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, increased yields, increased access to food, increased
Speaker 1: farmer livelihoods around the world, and they're a tool for sustainability.
Speaker 1: But that the dialogue, the storyline got into the system,
Speaker 1: which is they're bad for you. There you shouldn't consume them.
Speaker 1: But things like um, you know what Warner talked about
Speaker 1: cross breeding or you know, they're mangoes have been gmo
Speaker 1: engineers since the nineteen sixties, but I think people became
Speaker 1: fearful of them. To the follow up, Stephanie about soil health,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, and this next iteration or I'll say,
Speaker 1: the current iteration of sustainability in farming has to include
Speaker 1: regenerative agriculture, whether it be no till, whether it be
Speaker 1: crop rotation, but to improve soil health, and you soil
Speaker 1: for carbon sequestration is becoming more so and will become
Speaker 1: more so part of the solution to improve farmer livelihoods
Speaker 1: and to improve the greenhouse gas footprint of farming. Sustainability
Speaker 1: has been part of agriculture since agriculture ever started, right
Speaker 1: like since the Neolithic revolution. Essentially and so I think
Speaker 1: sustainability is is is a core part of the agricultural ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and so it's not the data as an answer, but
Speaker 1: that it is actually agriculture and people who understand agricultural markets,
Speaker 1: I would argue, probably understand our earth, the environment, and
Speaker 1: climate in ways that the average person in this world
Speaker 1: don't understand because their reality. Every single day. There was
Speaker 1: a there was a famous quote I had seen once
Speaker 1: that said eating is an agricultural act. And it was
Speaker 1: a T shirt actually at a coffee shop, and I
Speaker 1: I bought it. Then I went and I got my
Speaker 1: team to make a new version of that t shirt,
Speaker 1: which was living as an agricultural act. Because if you
Speaker 1: ask people the question what's your first interaction with agriculture
Speaker 1: when you wake up in the morning, most people say
Speaker 1: my cup of coffee. They forget about the sheet of
Speaker 1: cotton they slept in, They forget about the fact that
Speaker 1: the soaps they used have oils, they forget about the
Speaker 1: mint in their toothpaste. It is so a core part
Speaker 1: of our life and every part of the way we live,
Speaker 1: and we don't understand it. And I think I really
Speaker 1: believe that sort of the contribution that the agricultural industry
Speaker 1: as a whole can have two dialogues around sustainability and
Speaker 1: to driving change in sort of the world is large,
Speaker 1: and I think we're only just beginning. Feeding the world
Speaker 1: is partly, but the more you get into this debate
Speaker 1: is partly about not throwing food away. We're throwing away
Speaker 1: a third of our food. I mean, David, isn't that
Speaker 1: a How does a as a business like you would
Speaker 1: address that issue? Yeah, it's I mean food waste exists
Speaker 1: at all parts of the chain, and so if anybody
Speaker 1: who is American or has dying in American food service
Speaker 1: knows the portions are obscene um and rarely get fully
Speaker 1: consumed or they shouldn't be consumed for for health purposes.
Speaker 1: But I think it's what we're focusing on is waste
Speaker 1: on the front end of the supply chain. So I
Speaker 1: think when you focus on improving farmer education, modernizing farming techniques,
Speaker 1: the use of GMOs to better utilize the resources that
Speaker 1: go into production of food, to production of everything. To
Speaker 1: Sarah's good point, that's where I think waste can be eliminated,
Speaker 1: and it's not as visible. People don't see the front
Speaker 1: end of the supply chain. They see how a to
Speaker 1: waste they you know, as I said, in food service
Speaker 1: and restaurants, or it might be in food has gone bad.
Speaker 1: But I think there's various parts, and it might be
Speaker 1: in the middle part of the supply chain where it
Speaker 1: gets shipped or processed. But there's a lot of parts
Speaker 1: of the egg and food supply chain where waste contributes
Speaker 1: to inefficiency and high costs. But I think what the
Speaker 1: consumer sees is just one part of it. From Cargio standpoint,
Speaker 1: we're focusing where we're gonna have a bigger impact, which
Speaker 1: is on the front end, where where and when it's
Speaker 1: being produced. It couldn't help noticing that Elon Musk had
Speaker 1: a bit of money to spend on solving the problem
Speaker 1: of global hunger. I think it was six billion, six billion,
Speaker 1: So always says, how should he spend his six billion?
Speaker 1: What was your plan for him? I'm sure you sent
Speaker 1: it to him. You tweeted, well, you know, I wish,
Speaker 1: I wish i'd threaten him. Um, I'm sure you tweet back. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: if I gets six villain, I would invest in infrastructure,
Speaker 1: right like because fundamentally, like our invest in moving farmers,
Speaker 1: small skill farmers from takers to a place where they
Speaker 1: have more options and choices. You and I we can
Speaker 1: go on Amazon, Google and or whatever we want. Farmers
Speaker 1: are often takets of services. We have one guy in
Speaker 1: the village that specialized and that's it. There will be
Speaker 1: some eight projects that comes and that's good work. That
Speaker 1: would last for three or four years and then they'll
Speaker 1: go away. Right Like, what has to happen is that
Speaker 1: they need to have more options and choices where people
Speaker 1: compete on quality and price. UM. So I will build
Speaker 1: infrastructure that will give them more services on the farm,
Speaker 1: and that will give the more services in life too,
Speaker 1: because farmers are humans and they um In order to
Speaker 1: for them to keep growing food, to take care of us,
Speaker 1: they need to be healthy. They need to be well
Speaker 1: in life. So that's what I will invest money on.
Speaker 1: And if you're build infrastructure, if they have good roads,
Speaker 1: they have good storage facilities, they would be able to
Speaker 1: reduce both others lots. Right, they will maintain quality of food.
Speaker 1: When they maintain quality of the food, they get paid more.
Speaker 1: Right so, and if they want fertilizer like today last year,
Speaker 1: but this time the price of mp K was two
Speaker 1: in two paton today's thousand dollars, right, If they have
Speaker 1: the infrastructures fertilizer, it's gone up five phones exactly right,
Speaker 1: and they did nothing to to contribute to that. If
Speaker 1: they have the if there is an infrastructure that people
Speaker 1: would be able to easily reach them and they'll compete
Speaker 1: on quality and price. So that's what I'll use the
Speaker 1: money for. If given the chance, Day didn't have to
Speaker 1: ask you, also, where do you think it's the market
Speaker 1: failure that six billion would help solve? I would go
Speaker 1: back to what I was saying about farmer education, training,
Speaker 1: regenerative agg the points that we're just made soil health
Speaker 1: to increase syields but also increased livelihoods in places like Africa.
Speaker 1: And then I would also say, uh, infrastructure, so oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the US just passed a bill on that, but does
Speaker 1: it get to places like ports and river ways South
Speaker 1: America as well. So you've got this massive crop growing
Speaker 1: region of the world, South America, which doesn't yet have
Speaker 1: the appropriate infrastructure to get it out of the fields
Speaker 1: and to the consumer. Doesn't do any good if you
Speaker 1: increase yields and increase farmer training and education. If you
Speaker 1: can't get it to where it's needed. And so, but
Speaker 1: that's also true. You know that there's aging infrastructure in
Speaker 1: the US. What does it take It was the disruption
Speaker 1: in the Gulf from that hurricane avoidable because of better
Speaker 1: infrastructure maybe maybe or infrastructure that's going to be able
Speaker 1: to stand up better to the natural disasters which are
Speaker 1: inevitably coming with increasing frequency due to climate of volatility.
Speaker 1: And then I would say whatever is left over to
Speaker 1: give it to Sarah and Aloish's company to help farmers
Speaker 1: and then build the data. Sarah, I suspect a lot
Speaker 1: of the different pieces have been said, But where do
Speaker 1: you think would be a really kind of catalyzing investment
Speaker 1: that Elon could make? Well, I was gonna say, it's
Speaker 1: going to take a lot more than six billion dollars,
Speaker 1: and I don't think we want to trivialize the amount
Speaker 1: of investment it's going to take. When we talk about infrastructure, right,
Speaker 1: it's infrastructure in terms of storage of grain for farmers, right.
Speaker 1: And when you are looking at um small scale farming
Speaker 1: scale doesn't existence. So therefore the cost of infrastructure infrastructure
Speaker 1: is artificially too high. So how do you actually create
Speaker 1: aggregation methodologies that help us develop scale in communities and
Speaker 1: in parts of the world where that scale doesn't exist, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are really expensive, like undertaking. And so
Speaker 1: my my answer to the six billion dollars is I
Speaker 1: would actually use that to create a financial institution that
Speaker 1: would help create the mechanisms to start financing all the
Speaker 1: changes that then need to be made. Right, And I
Speaker 1: think one of the things to think about when thinking
Speaker 1: about sort of the financial markets as it relates to
Speaker 1: agriculture that I had not fully appreciated when I left
Speaker 1: to start grows. Only a handful of agricultural products are
Speaker 1: even traded on a formal exchange. Most agricultural trades happen
Speaker 1: day to day, week to week. That's it. That's the
Speaker 1: way most of the market works. And we have to
Speaker 1: change that because I think and you change that through capital,
Speaker 1: and I think creating new forms of financial institutions that
Speaker 1: truly innovate new models of financing agriculture is a place
Speaker 1: that I think one could put a lot of good use.
Speaker 1: You know, the six billion dollars could actually realistically create
Speaker 1: that sort of next level infrastructure that I think is necessary.
Speaker 1: You're all in different ways. At the heart of this challenge,
Speaker 1: do you sometimes wonder you think this is actually the
Speaker 1: time we're gonna We're going to fail even without all
Speaker 1: of our expertise. Do you have moments of doubt? No,
Speaker 1: I would rely on the ingenuity of our people and
Speaker 1: the power of science. Has said it earlier, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: level of confraud is currently as high as it's never been. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just have to plan to ride solutions with science
Speaker 1: and technology to solve the problems of society and the planet.
Speaker 1: And I have absolutely no doubt that we are going
Speaker 1: to succeed. Well, I guess if there was ever a
Speaker 1: twelve months that showed us the rightness of being confident
Speaker 1: in science and the miraculous nature of science, but also
Speaker 1: the humility we need in face with some of these
Speaker 1: rising challenges. It's the last twelve months, but thank you
Speaker 1: to all of you, and thanks for listening. That's it
Speaker 1: from the special edition of Stephonomics. We'll be back next
Speaker 1: week with a bit more from Singapore and from other
Speaker 1: parts of the world. This episode was produced by as
Speaker 1: Hendrickson as Ever and the head of Bloomberg Podcast is
Speaker 1: Francesca Levie m h m hm m m