Speaker 1: Hello. You're listening to Kobe time, a podcast series on
Speaker 1: markets and economies from devious group research. I'm Tamera Beck
Speaker 1: chief economist. Welcome to our 82nd episode.
Speaker 1: Today I'll start on a personal note. My friend as
Speaker 1: motif does policy advocacy work for SDG two. Now you
Speaker 1: may wonder what that entails. Well, S. D. G two
Speaker 1: is number two on the U. N. Sustainable development goals
Speaker 1: simply stated it is zero hunger end hunger, achieve food
Speaker 1: security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Well easier
Speaker 1: said than done as we have seen over the last
Speaker 1: year or so, that what was considered a topic largely
Speaker 1: confined to very poor countries now is becoming a source
Speaker 1: of global concern both from a short and long term perspective.
Speaker 1: So I've been asking my friend Asthma that you know,
Speaker 1: who should I talk to if I want to get
Speaker 1: a global sweep of of this issue. Somebody who's comfortable
Speaker 1: talking about the science as well as the politics and
Speaker 1: economics of food insecurity and he should suggest that
Speaker 1: today's guests. So I'm very pleased to have with us.
Speaker 1: Karen smaller. She is the executive director of the Schomburg
Speaker 1: Center for Food and Climate. Karen was co director and
Speaker 1: co author of Serious to 2030 a major initiative that
Speaker 1: we'll talk about in detail during the podcast. She is
Speaker 1: also the author of the guide to negotiating investment contracts
Speaker 1: for farmland and water published by the International Institute for
Speaker 1: Sustainable Development or I I. S. D.
Speaker 1: And this guide sort of marks the first attempt at
Speaker 1: a model contract for developing countries to attract foreign investment
Speaker 1: for agriculture while reducing poverty and protecting the environment. And
Speaker 1: that's one issue that I want to pick Karen's brain,
Speaker 1: both the intersection or the intersection of climate change and
Speaker 1: food insecurity.
Speaker 1: Karen in her past professional engagement was the Director of Agriculture,
Speaker 1: Trade and Investment at I. S. D. As well as
Speaker 1: director of the Trade Information project at the Institute of
Speaker 1: Agriculture and Trade Policy I 80 p. Karen smaller. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Covid Time.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: It's great to have you. I want to start with
Speaker 1: the very latest on your side. You're the executive director
Speaker 1: of the Schomburg Center for Food and Climate. What is
Speaker 1: the center's mission objective and what is your role in it?
Speaker 2: Thank you. So um our vision at the samba center
Speaker 2: is quite simple but ambitious. It's a world without hunger
Speaker 2: achieved sustainably
Speaker 2: and through empowering poor producers, informal traders and small businesses.
Speaker 2: How do we do this? We do this by basically
Speaker 2: influencing those with power to do more and to do
Speaker 2: it better.
Speaker 2: So we try to convince world leaders, business leaders and
Speaker 2: philanthropists to act and I'm actually one of three co
Speaker 2: founders of the samba center. And as you as you
Speaker 2: articulated my role is as the executive director
Speaker 1: and when you say that you engage philanthropists and governments.
Speaker 1: Um so give us a few ideas of you know
Speaker 1: how you want to pursue this or I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: done this in your previous jobs as well. But just
Speaker 1: give us a sense of, you know, how does an
Speaker 1: advocate running a center like this engage on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis?
Speaker 2: So we try and reach those with the most power,
Speaker 2: which means we're trying to aim for ministers, politicians were
Speaker 2: trying to aim for C. E. O. S and we're
Speaker 2: telling them this is what needs to happen to achieve
Speaker 2: world hunger and to do it sustainably. This is how
Speaker 2: you can do it. So I'm going to maybe tell
Speaker 2: you a bit about it later but we have a
Speaker 2: great initiative called the zero hunger private sector pledge
Speaker 2: where we ask companies to make financial commitments to end hunger.
Speaker 2: And we have a menu of 10 high impact areas
Speaker 2: that have been defined by science through this Sara's 2030
Speaker 2: project that you mentioned at the introduction
Speaker 2: and we asked them to make investments in those 10
Speaker 2: areas that are backed by the scientific evidence and in
Speaker 2: the 90 odd countries that we've identified are the highest
Speaker 2: priority countries to try and solve this issue of world hunger.
Speaker 1: Great. So yeah, we will talk in great detail about
Speaker 1: the science that's sort of trying to come up with
Speaker 1: solutions as well as diagnosing the problem and the issue
Speaker 1: of costing and I've seen some of your YouTube presentation.
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited to talk about that. But first,
Speaker 1: Karen the here and now let's talk about the state
Speaker 1: of food security and security world war right now, how
Speaker 1: worried should we be about the rest of this year?
Speaker 1: As well as 2023, we both respected the price of
Speaker 1: food and availability of food.
Speaker 2: So unfortunately we have to we should be worried. We
Speaker 2: should be very worried. So whilst you may have seen
Speaker 2: prices for wheat and corn easing off a bit in
Speaker 2: the last few weeks and this was definitely helped by
Speaker 2: the Ukraine Russia grain agreement that Turkey and the U. N. Brokered.
Speaker 2: So whilst definitely we see prices easing off compared to
Speaker 2: what we were seeing in March and april,
Speaker 2: we're not out of the dark, we're not out of
Speaker 2: the woods. This crisis is not just about grain prices
Speaker 2: and availability of grains and it predates the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: This crisis, this food security crisis that we currently have
Speaker 2: is also about fertilizers, fertilizer prices, and fertilizer availability. It's
Speaker 2: very much about energy prices and energy availability and it's
Speaker 2: about access to finance. So all these things, food fertilizers,
Speaker 2: energy and finance
Speaker 2: are currently too expensive for poor countries and poor producers
Speaker 2: to afford.
Speaker 2: So that basically means that fertilizers are either not being
Speaker 2: applied on farms or being applied sparingly.
Speaker 2: And that means that the next harvest there's not gonna
Speaker 2: be as much food produced as the last harvest.
Speaker 2: The high energy prices means that even where food is
Speaker 2: being produced, they're less likely to leave the farm because
Speaker 2: the farmers not willing to pay the high energy prices
Speaker 2: and the traders, the informal traders and the smes who
Speaker 2: are transporting these, this produce to market can't afford to
Speaker 2: do it at the same price.
Speaker 2: Um So this issue of transport means we're gonna have
Speaker 2: food not leaving the farm or less food leaving the
Speaker 2: farm and less transport,
Speaker 2: this is going to mean higher chance for the food
Speaker 2: to be wasted or rotting or just not leaving at all.
Speaker 2: And then there's this finance crisis. Um and I mean,
Speaker 2: we obviously see it most starkly in the case of
Speaker 2: sri Lanka with the debt crisis, but it's not just
Speaker 2: about sri Lanka and countries, it's about farmers being in debt,
Speaker 2: it's about countries being in debt,
Speaker 2: It's about debt levels all over the world out of
Speaker 2: control in so many low and middle-income countries and it's
Speaker 2: this vicious circle, that means we have to be really,
Speaker 2: really worried for now. And into 2030, just a small example,
Speaker 2: the farmers that are currently in debt and we see
Speaker 2: a lot of those Ukrainian farmers who've been trying to
Speaker 2: get their grains shipped out of Ukraine, heavily indebted
Speaker 2: if they can't get those grains out either through land
Speaker 2: or through the Black Sea,
Speaker 2: They're not going to be able to plant next harvest
Speaker 2: next season, and then this crisis is going to go
Speaker 2: through into 2023.
Speaker 1: Alright, that's a, you know sobering set of thoughts and
Speaker 1: I have a few follow ups on that care. And
Speaker 1: so before we go into the low and low income countries,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about at least one middle income
Speaker 1: country which is china and the other is the other
Speaker 1: big chunk of population in the world is India. So
Speaker 1: India of course plays a role in both
Speaker 1: Exporting and to some extent importing food material, China hugely
Speaker 1: reliant on the US for Soybean. And also I guess
Speaker 1: Latin America. So let's start with China and India, what's
Speaker 1: your sense of these two countries? Both with respect to
Speaker 1: harvest and stockpile and and the outlook for 2022 and 2023.
Speaker 2: So we don't have a great visibility on the chinese stocks.
Speaker 2: It looks like china has quite good stocks. So there's
Speaker 2: a lot of calls to try and get more information
Speaker 2: about what china's stock levels are because china's stocks look
Speaker 2: like they're pretty good.
Speaker 2: Whereas global stocks are pretty low. So the low stock
Speaker 2: levels is another sort of sign for me that we
Speaker 2: should be worried not just now, but in the future.
Speaker 2: So we seem to feel to hear that there are
Speaker 2: quite good stock levels in china, but china is also
Speaker 2: pretty dependent on Ukraine and Russia for imports. So china
Speaker 2: is actually potentially one of the beneficiaries of this new
Speaker 2: Ukraine Russia grain deal.
Speaker 2: But again, china can do more to help ease the
Speaker 2: global market crisis by releasing some of their stocks onto
Speaker 2: global markets and making those more available.
Speaker 2: India has not been the best ally of the poor
Speaker 2: world recently. You know, they put in place this ban
Speaker 2: on on grain exports, on wheat exports. Um and this
Speaker 2: was really disruptive to markets and to those countries that were,
Speaker 2: you know, depending on India not banning their exports, but
Speaker 2: allowing exports to come out. So that India could then
Speaker 2: replace some of the Ukrainian and Russian grain exports. But
Speaker 2: India put in place these export bans
Speaker 2: that was really very badly received by the world. I
Speaker 2: think India is now agreed to lift them. But again,
Speaker 2: India and china are also going to be struggling with
Speaker 2: not just the food prices, but again, this sort of
Speaker 2: multiple crisis of fertilizer energy finance. So on the energy front,
Speaker 2: everybody suffering um on the fertilizer front, everybody's suffering.
Speaker 2: And on the finance side, there's also, you know, huge problems.
Speaker 1: No, indeed, you know, with this secular rising interest rates
Speaker 1: around the world, your your point on financing, you know,
Speaker 1: really resonates. And we think of food in terms of
Speaker 1: harvest and distribution, perhaps don't pay enough attention to this
Speaker 1: financial angle, which of course, is closer to our heart
Speaker 1: in the banking sector. And you sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: starkly pointed out that the linkages and the risks that
Speaker 1: come with it.
Speaker 1: Now, Karen, you said that, you know, India's, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of ad hoc decision to restrict exports of grain
Speaker 1: met with criticism and there's been some back and forth
Speaker 1: and some easing here and there and perhaps china is
Speaker 1: also on the table in some global forum around this now,
Speaker 1: 2.5 years ago,
Speaker 1: wh o found itself in a very difficult position around
Speaker 1: the pandemic where people were questioning its effectiveness of leadership,
Speaker 1: whether it was biased here or there and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Does the W FB stand on sounder grounds?
Speaker 1: Is it bringing together all the key actors of the
Speaker 1: world in this critical time?
Speaker 2: So, we actually just had a great victory for the
Speaker 2: World Food Program recently in of all unlikely places, the
Speaker 2: World Trade Organization, the W. T. O.
Speaker 2: So up until a few weeks ago, countries like India
Speaker 2: would have been able to ban exports even for the
Speaker 2: World Food Program.
Speaker 2: And luckily all countries including India and china voted to
Speaker 2: agree on what they called the W. F. P. Waver,
Speaker 2: which meant that basically countries agreed at the World Trade
Speaker 2: Organization to not allow export bans or export restrictions on
Speaker 2: food stuffs that was being purchased by the W. F. P.
Speaker 2: For its operations.
Speaker 2: So the WFP is actually in a great situation now
Speaker 2: in terms of countries agreeing that they will not do
Speaker 2: anything to restrict W. F. P. S ability to do
Speaker 2: its jobs to source food and to get it to
Speaker 2: the people who need it
Speaker 2: where the W. F. P. Is struggling is the numbers
Speaker 2: of hungry people are so out of control that unless
Speaker 2: they get much more funding to finance their food distribution
Speaker 2: or cash distribution programs, they're not going to be able
Speaker 2: to actually get to all the hungry people. And you
Speaker 2: have this dreadful situation where they're having to choose one
Speaker 2: hungry person over another
Speaker 2: or basically target those who are on the verge of
Speaker 2: starvation and not get to the usual um people that
Speaker 2: they're trying to help. So WFP's problem is less about
Speaker 2: sourcing the food and more about getting the money they
Speaker 2: need or the support they need to finance their food.
Speaker 2: But again here, I think W FPs in an okay situation,
Speaker 2: you had a huge announcement by the biden administration in
Speaker 2: this Ukraine bill that was adopted by Congress where a
Speaker 2: huge chunk of that Ukraine bill was a few billion
Speaker 2: dollars allocated to emergency food assistance for the W. F. P.
Speaker 2: Um you've seen Germany announced additional money. Um part of
Speaker 2: which will go for emergency food aid assistance and a
Speaker 2: number of other countries.
Speaker 1: Um Karen earlier, you were saying that uh you know,
Speaker 1: this
Speaker 2: concern
Speaker 1: about food insecurity even in the near term ones did
Speaker 1: not begin with this war in Ukraine. We actually saw
Speaker 1: food prices go up even last year. And and even
Speaker 1: before the pandemic and this was an issue, otherwise it
Speaker 1: would not be, you know, number two on U. N.
Speaker 1: Sustainable goals. So I wanted to engage you about the
Speaker 1: structural aspects of food insecurity if I'm not mistaken. I
Speaker 1: mean I think there are human document
Speaker 1: Which showed that through the 70s and 80s, even in
Speaker 1: the 90s, the worldwide, you know, hunger rate was going
Speaker 1: down and then over the last decade or so it's
Speaker 1: been going up again, which I find very troubling given
Speaker 1: that world is much more prosperous today than it was
Speaker 1: 10 or 20 years ago. So why are we becoming
Speaker 1: gradually more food insecure and you know, walk us through
Speaker 1: the you know, all these various structural drivers.
Speaker 2: So indeed um as you rightly mentioned this food insecurity
Speaker 2: situation predates both the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: And as you said, I mean we were seeing progress
Speaker 2: including in the 90s. I mean we sort of had
Speaker 2: three decades of great progress where we saw hunger levels
Speaker 2: declining up until about a level of 8% of the
Speaker 2: global population.
Speaker 2: But for the past and I think it's less than
Speaker 2: a decade, I think it's only about five or six years,
Speaker 2: we suddenly see this rise in food insecurity again after
Speaker 2: getting so close to wiping out hunger.
Speaker 2: Um so five or six years we've seen an increase.
Speaker 2: The pandemic was by far the biggest setback to global
Speaker 2: food security with more than 100 million people with an
Speaker 2: additional 100 million people going into hunger as a result
Speaker 2: of the pandemic. And now with Ukraine a further, we
Speaker 2: don't know exactly how many but 50-80 million more people
Speaker 2: again being pushed into hunger.
Speaker 2: Why is this happening? Um so I think there are
Speaker 2: three main factors.
Speaker 2: The first is in the last five or six years
Speaker 2: we have experienced more economic slowdowns. I mean today we're
Speaker 2: talking about recessions as well, but many more economic slowdowns
Speaker 2: in the low and middle income countries for various reasons.
Speaker 2: In some cases, it's because of low commodity prices, low
Speaker 2: oil prices, low, low low mineral prices. Um
Speaker 2: in other cases it's for other reasons, but we've seen
Speaker 2: these economic slowdowns and they always put a negative dent
Speaker 2: into food security
Speaker 2: the second and the more I think more serious problem
Speaker 2: that's with us for the future are the climate shocks, droughts,
Speaker 2: floods and cyclones.
Speaker 2: Climate change has now become one of the main drivers
Speaker 2: of food insecurity
Speaker 2: and this is with us to stay as we know,
Speaker 2: we are not going to meet the 1.5 degree target.
Speaker 2: Climate change will be a reality is already a reality.
Speaker 2: It is just going to get worse. And so these
Speaker 2: shocks are going to continue and I mean, we've seen
Speaker 2: it already, you know, we're seeing it now, the droughts,
Speaker 2: the floods undermining harvests
Speaker 2: and then the third driver, which has always been a
Speaker 2: driver and always will be. And I think is probably
Speaker 2: the hardest one to eradicate in our lifetimes is conflict
Speaker 2: whenever you see conflict, you see hunger rising.
Speaker 2: So for me there's these three factors that are really
Speaker 2: undermining food security
Speaker 2: with the pandemic. The main problem was access not availability
Speaker 2: access basically meaning there was a lot of food in
Speaker 2: the market but people lost their incomes. So while those
Speaker 2: people sitting in the rich world got safety nets and
Speaker 2: got all support from their government, those sitting in the
Speaker 2: poor world, their governments couldn't afford to help them. And
Speaker 2: so they lost their with the lockdowns, they lost their
Speaker 2: jobs from one day to the next no job, no income,
Speaker 2: no food.
Speaker 2: Um That was really the shock of the covid for
Speaker 2: so many people in low and middle income countries with you,
Speaker 2: the Ukraine issue as we've discussed, there's an availability issue,
Speaker 2: there's an access issue. There's these disruptions to grain markets
Speaker 2: with the ports being stopped with countries putting in export bands,
Speaker 2: there's low global stocks, but there's also the fertilizer and
Speaker 2: the energy issue.
Speaker 2: So what do we need to do to fix this
Speaker 2: to stop this horrible reversal of otherwise decades of progress.
Speaker 2: So I think immediately people need cash
Speaker 2: to basically get them over the crisis to be able
Speaker 2: to be able to afford food, um healthcare etcetera. So
Speaker 2: I think we need a massive global social safety net program.
Speaker 2: I think the U. N. Needs to oversee it. But
Speaker 2: I think we need a social safety net program on
Speaker 2: the scale we've never seen before that's going to be
Speaker 2: the key factor to help us get over this current crisis.
Speaker 1: But but Karen when you say a social safety net
Speaker 1: program only for the short term or you would like
Speaker 1: to see this for the long term to
Speaker 2: we need it for the short term. Getting it for
Speaker 2: the long term is much more political. And there we
Speaker 2: start getting into these discussions about minimum basic incomes who's
Speaker 2: entitled to safety nets, how they should get them. And
Speaker 2: this becomes political. And we see in many countries politicians
Speaker 2: now advocating for these basic minimum income.
Speaker 2: But I think this is a bigger discussion to have.
Speaker 2: What I'm talking about is short term to get us
Speaker 2: over the crisis. Even though if we start getting into
Speaker 2: the discussion, I think there starts being a more and
Speaker 2: more persuasive argument in favor of a basic minimum income
Speaker 2: for everyone if we accept that the new norm is
Speaker 2: shocks
Speaker 2: and I think the new norm is shocks, whether they're
Speaker 2: climate shocks, pandemic shocks, conflict shocks. I think this is
Speaker 2: the new norm at least for the coming decades.
Speaker 1: Um Karen just want to pivot this discussion for a
Speaker 1: second just to go back to the point that
Speaker 1: level of global hunger sort of improved for a while
Speaker 1: and then it exacerbated you've pointed out cogently a bunch
Speaker 1: of factors. I wonder what you think of this notion
Speaker 1: that even in terms of crop yield that with the
Speaker 1: Green revolution in the sixties and seventies and as developing
Speaker 1: countries adopted, you know, high yielding fertilizer and so on.
Speaker 1: Um we we saw an improvement in agricultural productivity and
Speaker 1: that's also sort of flattened out, which I find personally
Speaker 1: rather striking given you know, so many
Speaker 1: high tech solutions out there these days from satellite imaging
Speaker 1: and smart irrigation and so on. Um first of all,
Speaker 1: do you agree that, you know, we have sort of
Speaker 1: flattened out in terms of popular around the world or
Speaker 1: is it the case that we still have a lot
Speaker 1: of low hanging fruits in terms of improving agriculture technology
Speaker 1: around the world and improving our food productivity.
Speaker 2: So now we get controversial and we get to this
Speaker 2: link also with our environmental crisis that we currently have.
Speaker 2: So there's no doubt, I think everyone agrees even the
Speaker 2: harshest critics of the Green Revolution agree that the Green
Speaker 2: Revolution is one of the major drivers in having eradicated
Speaker 2: hunger and poverty because of this improvements in yields and
Speaker 2: ability of farmers to go beyond subsistence and to start
Speaker 2: becoming commercial.
Speaker 2: It has created untold environmental problems, not just climate change,
Speaker 2: but biodiversity, loss, pollution. And we are paying for that
Speaker 2: today so that it's now come back to bite us
Speaker 2: and now environmental problems are one of the main drivers
Speaker 2: of food insecurity and poverty, so
Speaker 2: we've got to deal with the consequences of that success,
Speaker 2: I would say it was not only about yield improvements
Speaker 2: and productivity gains and green revolutionary technology. I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot of other factors that were in play. A
Speaker 2: lot of countries like china succeeded not because they improve
Speaker 2: productivity in agriculture, but because they improved productivity productivity in
Speaker 2: non agricultural sectors, manufacturing services, infrastructure,
Speaker 2: china moved people out of agriculture as a way to develop.
Speaker 2: That's quite different to what you see some of the
Speaker 2: latin american countries having achieved where they really pushed agriculture
Speaker 2: as the engine of growth and their engine of economic development, Brazil,
Speaker 2: Argentina Uruguay, all these countries, Costa rica, you know, agriculture
Speaker 2: was the way that they got out of hunger and poverty,
Speaker 2: but it's not a universal story. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: other countries that, you know, Vietnam China pursued a different
Speaker 2: model that's been arguably more successful because they've now got
Speaker 2: very diversified economies.
Speaker 2: Um
Speaker 2: technology has been a huge factor, but not just crop technologies,
Speaker 2: not just technologies that improved yields, technologies that improved access
Speaker 2: to energy or improved mobility or made it easier to
Speaker 2: apply machinery technology. All of these other factors have also
Speaker 2: played a role.
Speaker 2: And I do think that as we find solutions for our,
Speaker 2: for our current and future problems, we can no longer
Speaker 2: just rely on the old way we did things. Um
Speaker 2: even those who are huge supporters of the Green Revolution
Speaker 2: um realize that we can't keep doing it this way
Speaker 2: that as you said, we've reached in some places, we've
Speaker 2: reached the limit of our yield potential?
Speaker 2: We haven't everywhere, there's still massive productivity gaps in agriculture
Speaker 2: in africa, so there's still a huge yield gap to
Speaker 2: fill in african agriculture,
Speaker 2: but if we do it in the same way as
Speaker 2: we did it in Asia and latin America, we will
Speaker 2: keep exacerbating these environmental problems that are
Speaker 2: undermining our ability to solve these problems for good.
Speaker 1: Um Karen, I want to go back to the earlier point,
Speaker 1: you were talking about this notion of a short term
Speaker 1: global food Safety net. Now their trust funds and financing
Speaker 1: facilities in the multilateral world out there. So, for example,
Speaker 1: the I. M. F. Has this resilience and sustainability trust fund,
Speaker 1: I believe Bangladesh has reached out to the I. M.
Speaker 1: F to seek a trance from that um as part of,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of building up buffers
Speaker 1: against, you know, future shocks, not in history, really insecurity,
Speaker 1: but balance of payments. Now, I want to sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, segue into serious 2030 in in a in
Speaker 1: a sort of, you know, cumbersome manner because these sort
Speaker 1: of issues that, you know, how to fund gaps in
Speaker 1: food security in the short term as well as set
Speaker 1: basis for the longer term, required
Speaker 1: Serious analysis, serious costing exercise things that are very credible to,
Speaker 1: as you were saying earlier, not just ministers that you
Speaker 1: engage with, but also extremely wealthy philanthropists who want to
Speaker 1: see convincing science-based numbers. So who's running these exercises? What
Speaker 1: are the, you know, costing estimates for the near and
Speaker 1: medium term? So walk us through serious 2030.
Speaker 2: Thank you. So Sarah's 2030 was this three year research effort?
Speaker 2: We were we were almost 90 researchers from 23 different
Speaker 2: countries and 53 different research organizations.
Speaker 2: Um We were financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Speaker 2: Foundation and the german government. So that gets back to
Speaker 2: our trying to convince the most powerful. So it was
Speaker 2: a study commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Speaker 2: and the german government to try and answer this question,
Speaker 2: how much is it going to cost to end hunger
Speaker 2: and what are the most effective ways of doing it?
Speaker 2: And we really use that S. T. G. Two framework
Speaker 2: as our
Speaker 2: framework for defining what are our targets and indicators. You
Speaker 2: mentioned it in the in the introduction today.
Speaker 2: So what we did was we reviewed half a million
Speaker 2: articles from the past 20 years of agricultural development literature
Speaker 2: and then we used a global economic model to estimate
Speaker 2: how it would cost. So what the literature told us, well,
Speaker 2: what were the most effective ways to end hunger and
Speaker 2: what the model told us was how much it was
Speaker 2: going to cost.
Speaker 2: And we were all very surprised with the results
Speaker 2: Because what we found was that it really is possible
Speaker 2: to end world hunger and it's possible to do it
Speaker 2: by 2030 and it's possible to do it in a
Speaker 2: sustainable way.
Speaker 2: So what we found is basically that the price tag
Speaker 2: is an extra $33 billion 2030.
Speaker 2: And that with that what we could do was end hunger,
Speaker 2: we could double the incomes and the productivity of about
Speaker 2: half a billion poor producers,
Speaker 2: and we could do it in a way that maintained
Speaker 2: greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture, to the commitments that countries
Speaker 2: made in the paris climate agreement.
Speaker 2: So we have a hunger target, a producer productivity target,
Speaker 2: and we have a climate target
Speaker 2: And of this sort of total package of an additional
Speaker 2: 33 billion a year, 19 out of the 33 billion
Speaker 2: has to come from the countries themselves, the low and
Speaker 2: middle-income countries themselves through their own public resource, mobilization.
Speaker 2: So that only 14 out of the 33 billion a
Speaker 2: year has to come from outside help
Speaker 2: from donors, from philanthropists, etcetera.
Speaker 2: And this is in many ways why we founded the
Speaker 2: Schomburg Center for Food and Climate, because once we saw
Speaker 2: this evidence based
Speaker 2: um report come out and we were convinced that it
Speaker 2: was so possible to end hunger, we decided, okay, we
Speaker 2: need to establish an organization with a vision to end
Speaker 2: world hunger sustainably and to do it by empowering those
Speaker 2: producers and those businesses that are the sort of key
Speaker 2: to unleashing that um that goal.
Speaker 2: So in Sarah's 2030 just coming back um and then
Speaker 2: I will hand over back to you for other questions.
Speaker 2: So we basically found that 90 countries need to be
Speaker 2: prioritized for this investment
Speaker 2: And that there's 10 high impact areas where we need
Speaker 2: more investment.
Speaker 2: So we have these 10 high impact areas and we
Speaker 2: group them into three big buckets if you like. So
Speaker 2: the first bucket and probably the most important is all
Speaker 2: the on farm investments and these are investments like investments
Speaker 2: in research and development in technology, in mechanization in assets
Speaker 2: that basically help farmers to improve their productivity and their incomes.
Speaker 2: The second is investments
Speaker 2: to move food from the farm to the market and
Speaker 2: it's basically things that improve storage is improved business services
Speaker 2: that farmers need. And the third is this bucket called
Speaker 2: empowering the excluded and this is all our social safety
Speaker 2: nets but it's also our education and vocational training and
Speaker 2: it's basically the things that allow people to be at
Speaker 2: a level needed so that they can benefit from everything else.
Speaker 2: So it's making sure that you have an education, a
Speaker 2: decent livelihood and a political voice so that when all
Speaker 2: these other help comes technology inputs, R and D. Business
Speaker 2: services that you can benefit from it.
Speaker 1: All right, lots of follow up questions. So firstly the
Speaker 1: 90 countries that you're talking about are the majority of
Speaker 1: them in Africa.
Speaker 2: Yes and the highest so far 90. We have low priority,
Speaker 2: medium priority and high priority by far most of the
Speaker 2: higher priority countries are in Africa. And most of the
Speaker 2: priority countries that are in Africa. But there are pockets
Speaker 2: in Southeast Asia, South Asia and in Central America
Speaker 1: including Central America. Okay. Which is sandwiched between two very
Speaker 1: large food producing regions of the world. North America and
Speaker 1: South America. Yeah, it's ironic.
Speaker 1: Um second question is you know, you earlier talked about
Speaker 1: you know the U. S. Philanthropist being very engaged, particularly
Speaker 1: the Gates Foundation. And we also talked about how the
Speaker 1: latest bill coming out of the U. S. Congress will
Speaker 1: also channel you know critical resources toward uh this issue.
Speaker 1: But what about european union? What about the rest of Asia?
Speaker 1: What kind of leadership are we seeing both in terms
Speaker 1: of commitment to finance at the public and private sector
Speaker 1: level as well as actual action?
Speaker 2: I mean I think probably where where ASIA is going
Speaker 2: to be contributing the most is in all the infrastructure development.
Speaker 2: I mean china leading the one belt um initiative, a
Speaker 2: huge infrastructure project, China financing a lot of the infrastructure
Speaker 2: development in Africa today and in South Asia, I think
Speaker 2: china is going to be hugely important in the infrastructure,
Speaker 2: the way china provides its aid though, can sometimes make
Speaker 2: countries more vulnerable and we've seen this with a lot
Speaker 2: of these very attractive loans for infrastructure development and then
Speaker 2: when the country can't pay it back the chinese government
Speaker 2: or the chinese state owned enterprise that is responsible for
Speaker 2: it takes over these assets. And we see a number
Speaker 2: of ports, roads and bridges where the country has been
Speaker 2: unable to repay the loan back, where
Speaker 2: china has gone in and over, taken over or the
Speaker 2: state owned enterprises has gone and taken over these assets.
Speaker 2: Now I think china could do more to make the
Speaker 2: countries that they're providing these loans to not as vulnerable
Speaker 2: um to going into debt and being unable to repay
Speaker 2: those loans. But I think china, the ASIA Development Bank,
Speaker 2: the the new asian infrastructure and investment banks are going
Speaker 2: to be a huge source of additional investment um
Speaker 2: in the coming decades.
Speaker 2: Um The european Union's the european union and the european
Speaker 2: Member States definitely have stepped up. We've seen France and
Speaker 2: Germany in particular add more resources. We've seen the european
Speaker 2: commission add more resources.
Speaker 2: There is a lot of attention right now on Ukraine
Speaker 2: because it is the biggest threat to the european Union
Speaker 2: since World War Two. Um and so they are quite
Speaker 2: focused there, but there is additional money being made available,
Speaker 2: but we have, I mean, you have to acknowledge that
Speaker 2: we have seen leadership from the U. S. In terms
Speaker 2: of additional support and additional resources, not just for Ukraine
Speaker 2: but also globally um that we hadn't seen under the
Speaker 2: previous administration,
Speaker 1: right uh that is certainly a major departure, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about about Asia. So you again talked about
Speaker 1: private capital uh you know, being channeled out of the U. S.
Speaker 1: Now huge amount of wealth has been created in Asia
Speaker 1: in recent years. We have some of the richest men
Speaker 1: in the world and they're mostly men uh in in
Speaker 1: china and India. What kind of philanthropy capital are we
Speaker 1: seeing devoted towards this issue out of Asia?
Speaker 2: So this is not something that I follow quite a lot.
Speaker 2: So I think I probably wouldn't be able to answer you.
Speaker 2: I mean certainly at a global level we're not seeing
Speaker 2: asian philanthropists stepping up, but
Speaker 2: but I do, I mean I do here
Speaker 2: I do hear a lot about asian philanthropy in Asia.
Speaker 2: But again, I think I'm probably not the best person
Speaker 2: to answer this question.
Speaker 1: You're being very diplomatic. I think there isn't a lot,
Speaker 1: I mean if there was some chunky stuff I think
Speaker 1: would have seen in the news, Karen, I think there's
Speaker 1: more work to be done there and perhaps you can,
Speaker 1: you know, lead that way in, you know, encouraging controlling
Speaker 1: the wealthy of Asia.
Speaker 1: Um Karen, the issue about global policy coordination. So is
Speaker 1: the W. F. P. And as you said earlier that,
Speaker 1: you know, with the issues of W. T. O. That's
Speaker 1: where the coordination is taking place, not at the Washington
Speaker 1: think tanks like the World Bank, I m f they're
Speaker 1: sort of supporting as opposed to taking the lead.
Speaker 2: So the main um the main and I think rightly
Speaker 2: so the main group coordinating this effort is the UN's
Speaker 2: crisis group on they call it the US crisis group
Speaker 2: on Food Finance
Speaker 2: and
Speaker 2: I can't remember the
Speaker 1: third
Speaker 2: but Food energy and finance Food
Speaker 1: energy.
Speaker 2: So there's so the U. N. Is the main body
Speaker 2: coordinating this global response. But we've seen a multitude of
Speaker 2: other initiatives emerge right? So we've seen an initiative sort
Speaker 2: of supporting this U. N. Coordination mechanism um from the
Speaker 2: G seven and the World Bank
Speaker 2: with this Global Alliance for Food Security that was announced
Speaker 2: at the World Bank spring meetings last year. Um And
Speaker 2: then followed by this big conference called Global Uniting for
Speaker 2: Global Food Security which was a gathering of Foreign ministers,
Speaker 2: Finance ministers, um Agriculture ministers and Environment Ministers to try
Speaker 2: and unite again led by the G seven.
Speaker 2: And then for me, the best news was the G.
Speaker 2: Seven summit that took place in Germany this year, where
Speaker 2: the G seven leaders announced an additional $4.5 billion this
Speaker 2: year to help respond to the global food Security crisis.
Speaker 2: So I think there's been quite good leadership coming out
Speaker 2: of the G seven.
Speaker 2: There's also been important leadership coming out of the G-20
Speaker 2: with the Indonesian government currently holding the presidency. And there
Speaker 2: there was a major finance ministers meeting a few weeks
Speaker 2: ago on food security. I mean seeing finance ministers gathering
Speaker 2: to address the global food security crisis is unheard of.
Speaker 2: Um it just shows you how important this issue is
Speaker 2: and how important governments at all levels are taking this
Speaker 2: the leadership, the Finance Ministry's. Um
Speaker 2: so we're seeing that we saw the european commission currently
Speaker 2: led by the french government launching a farm initiative, a
Speaker 2: food and Agriculture resilience mission initiative where they've pledged additional
Speaker 2: money
Speaker 2: and we've seen the italian government taking the lead in
Speaker 2: setting up a mediterranean initiative. So, so everywhere a bit
Speaker 2: we're seeing initiatives emerging, I would say the main the
Speaker 2: leading coordinating body is the U. N. But there are
Speaker 2: these sort of other groups that are emerging to help
Speaker 2: accelerate that progress or work on specific areas or issues
Speaker 2: of need.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, we we started this conversation with rather
Speaker 1: dour and sobering reality. I'm glad that you're injecting a
Speaker 1: much needed dose of optimism and and constructive, you know,
Speaker 1: observations Karen here in Singapore, we have this government orchestrated
Speaker 1: 2030 goal 30 by 30 that 30% of
Speaker 1: Singapore's basic food would be grown in the urban vertical
Speaker 1: farming infrastructure of Singapore. So we talked a lot about
Speaker 1: farms which is by definition not urban and we talk
Speaker 1: about farmers, which I think, you know, largely speaking, we
Speaker 1: talk about rural farmers, what's your sense of what's happening
Speaker 1: in this new, exciting field of urban farming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, um
Speaker 2: I've actually looked a little bit at what's going on
Speaker 2: in Singapore and I think this is the future, I
Speaker 2: think given the current reality, I think our future food
Speaker 2: supplies are going to be grown in vertical farms and
Speaker 2: as we see like Singapore is taking the lead because
Speaker 2: there is no farmland in Singapore is taking the lead
Speaker 2: in developing the technology.
Speaker 2: It is currently way too energy intensive to really be
Speaker 2: a sustainable alternative to the current model. It uses far
Speaker 2: too much energy to produce the food.
Speaker 2: But if and when we solve the energy problem and
Speaker 2: we can source these vertical farms with renewable energy,
Speaker 2: truly sustainable energy. I think they are a very viable
Speaker 2: alternative to our currently highly polluting high emissions intensive, highly
Speaker 2: like unsecure because of the climate shocks model of agriculture
Speaker 2: that we're currently engaged in. So I definitely think this
Speaker 2: vertical farming is one of the is one of the
Speaker 2: areas we should be looking into.
Speaker 2: It's never going to be the only way we can
Speaker 2: grow food. And so whilst we pursue these vertical farms
Speaker 2: we also need to pursue a whole lot of other
Speaker 2: ways of producing in a more environmentally friendly way. And
Speaker 2: I think one of the easy to really easy things
Speaker 2: we can do
Speaker 2: one is being much more efficient and effective at applying
Speaker 2: the inputs we apply. Let's be much more precise about
Speaker 2: where we apply fertilizer and where we apply pesticide and
Speaker 2: let's apply it where it's needed rather than just across
Speaker 2: a whole farm or across thousands of hectares. So everything
Speaker 2: that's happening in precision agriculture,
Speaker 2: let's be more efficient at how we use water. Let's
Speaker 2: stop using flood irrigation and rotational irrigation and let's massively
Speaker 2: input like drip irrigation.
Speaker 2: Um so being much more efficient at how we use
Speaker 2: the inputs we need for producing food. And the second
Speaker 2: big thing, which is an easy victory to have is
Speaker 2: dealing with the waste.
Speaker 2: The waste at the farm level, the waste at the
Speaker 2: storage level and the waste at the consumer level. It's
Speaker 2: not just about the waste we do in our fridge
Speaker 2: is where we throw out half our fridge because the food,
Speaker 2: you know, got expired,
Speaker 2: it's about all the waste that's happening along the value
Speaker 2: chain where we're losing a huge percentage. We don't exactly
Speaker 2: know how much, we think it's somewhere between a quarter
Speaker 2: and a third, but where we're wasting huge amounts of
Speaker 2: food because we don't have proper storage facilities, cold storage
Speaker 2: facilities proper. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: okay. I want to assure all the listeners that this
Speaker 1: was not a planted question, Karen, the reason I say
Speaker 1: this because food waste related work is very close to
Speaker 1: dBS heart and we have launched a lot of campaigns
Speaker 1: about it. So people might think that, you know, I
Speaker 1: told you to talk about this, but this was completely unsolicited,
Speaker 1: this is totally from our own brain, Karen, it's
Speaker 2: great to hear that because seriously this is our lowest
Speaker 2: hanging fruit.
Speaker 1: Indeed, Absolutely. And it's so visible, so visible that the
Speaker 1: waste part,
Speaker 1: um so, Karen, a this has been very illuminating. I
Speaker 1: really thank you for this. I want to sort of
Speaker 1: conclude the conversation with you sort of flagging
Speaker 1: The biggest risk and perhaps on the positive side, you know,
Speaker 1: biggest opportunity for the remainder of the decade. Like when
Speaker 1: you did your series 2030, we still didn't have this
Speaker 1: cloud of the war over us. Have those estimates become
Speaker 1: more challenging? Are you actually more hopeful? Because the crisis
Speaker 1: has galvanized, like you said, the finance ministers, which was
Speaker 1: not necessarily the case in the past. So where do
Speaker 1: we stand in this juncture of
Speaker 1: things looking a bit dodgy? But at the same time
Speaker 1: we are hearing the clarion call of action.
Speaker 2: So I think my risk and my opportunity are very linked.
Speaker 2: The risk is people feeling like there's nothing they can
Speaker 2: do about this problem, that it's too big
Speaker 2: ending. World hunger is a whole of society effort. We're
Speaker 2: not going to achieve it unless the whole of society acts.
Speaker 2: And so for me, the opportunity is for everybody to
Speaker 2: do their bit.
Speaker 2: And, you know, I mentioned in the beginning this zero
Speaker 2: hunger private sector pledge, which for me is one of the,
Speaker 2: one of one of the most
Speaker 2: innovative mechanisms we have for everybody to act, any company,
Speaker 2: no matter how big or how small can make a
Speaker 2: financial commitment to invest in one of these 10 areas
Speaker 2: that was identified through the science of Sara's 2030 and
Speaker 2: in one of the 90 priority countries
Speaker 2: to contribute to ending world hunger.
Speaker 2: So if you're a company or if you're part of
Speaker 2: the private sector, no matter how big or how small
Speaker 2: we've had companies pledge $100, we've had companies pledge $160 million.
Speaker 2: This is not about charity. We're not asking for anybody
Speaker 2: to donate money. We're asking companies to say we will
Speaker 2: invest in areas that will contribute to food security and
Speaker 2: you don't even have to be a food business, you
Speaker 2: can be an airline, you can be a tech company,
Speaker 2: do something that helps the food system get better at
Speaker 2: ending world hunger.
Speaker 2: So anybody who's listening, who's part of a company get
Speaker 2: your company to pledge,
Speaker 2: if you're a government provide more money to these 10 areas,
Speaker 2: we've we've, you know, there's alongside the Zero hunger private
Speaker 2: sector pledge, there's a huge coalition that was launched called
Speaker 2: the Zero Hunger Coalition that allows governments, international organizations, companies,
Speaker 2: civil society, farmers organizations, all to act to make commitments
Speaker 2: and to act.
Speaker 2: And I think that the risk is this not happening
Speaker 2: because people feel like the problem is too big or
Speaker 2: it's not theirs and the opportunity is for everybody to
Speaker 2: get together and to make these very concrete practical commitments
Speaker 2: to act to try and achieve this goal by 2030.
Speaker 1: Well, we sort of, you know, not only is keep
Speaker 1: our fingers crossed, but to your point that, you know,
Speaker 1: action and and practical are absolutely key. Karen smaller. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for your time and in science.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. It's been great talking to you today.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our listeners as well. Kobe time was produced
Speaker 1: by ken Dell Bridge from Split Studios, daisy Sharma and
Speaker 1: violently provided additional production assistance. Kobe time is for information
Speaker 1: only and does not present any tree.
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Speaker 1: webinars and live streams. You can find them all by
Speaker 1: googling Devious Research Library. Have a great day.