Gilman Foreign Policy in Focus: Global Food Security - Seminar 1

Summary

In this engaging seminar, part of a four-part series by the Gilman Scholarship Program, experts discuss various dimensions of global food security. The session serves as an introductory exploration of key concepts, current challenges, and solutions associated with global food security. Dr. N.L. Habashy, from Penn State, facilitates the discussion with contributions from Heidi Manley of the U.S. Department of State, Paul Manya from Kenya, and Aaron Schwobel from the U.S State Department. The seminar covers topics such as the importance of cultural understanding, the impact of climate change, practical definitions of food security, and the role of international cooperation in addressing food insecurity challenges.

Highlights

• Dr. N.L. Habashy introduces the session aiming to unpack global food security complexities 🎤.
• Heidi Manley discusses the importance of study abroad programs in understanding international food security 📚.
• Paul Manya talks about traditional support systems in Kenya and their relevance to modern food security 🌍.
• Aaron Schwobel presents U.S. initiatives aimed at enhancing global food security through trade and innovation 🚜.
• Interactive Q&A and audience engagement underscore the seminar's dynamic educational approach 💬.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding global food security requires engaging with multiple perspectives and cultural contexts 🌎.
• The seminar highlights the multifaceted nature of food insecurity, including availability, access, utilization, and stability 🌾.
• Speakers emphasize the need for international cooperation and local agency to effectively tackle food security issues 🤝.
• Dr. N.L. Habashy and experts provide insights into current global food security challenges and practical solutions 💡.
• Programs like the Gilman Scholarship aim to enhance global understanding through education and cultural exchange 🎓.

Overview

In the first of four seminars exploring global food security, Dr. N.L. Habashy brings together experts to discuss critical aspects of this pressing global issue. Held by the Gilman Scholarship Program, the seminar serves as an introductory platform imaging how education and collaborative efforts can address complex food security challenges. The session is interactive, bringing in voices and questions from a diverse audience.

Keynote speaker Heidi Manley from the U.S. Department of State elaborates on how educational programs like the Gilman Scholarship enhance understanding and cooperation on global food security issues. Her focus is on the significance of cultural and educational exchange in building a competent workforce prepared to address food security globally. This is juxtaposed against the need for all societal levels to engage in solving food insecurity.

Guest speaker Paul Manya from Kenya shares about the cultural elements influencing food security and the importance of local agency. Supporting voices like him, Aaron Schwobel outlines critical U.S. government initiatives working towards innovation in agriculture and multinational agreements to foster sustainable food production. This collaborative seminar sets the stage for further discussions in the series, focusing on climate change, gender, and government roles in global food security.

Gilman Foreign Policy in Focus: Global Food Security - Seminar 1 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 it is a a real treat and privilege to be with you all here uh this is our first session in a series of four seminars looking at Global Food security um and so this session is sort of the the introductory overview looking at what are the core pieces of what's happening on a large scale with global food security but we've also got the opportunity to hear from some individuals to provide a little bit more perspective um and so we're we're really delighted to be here I'm Dr NL habashy I'm a faculty member at Penn State
• 00:30 - 01:00 University I teach classes related to Global Food security um and get to be a part of a pretty fantastic team of individuals working with this program um and so one one of those folks is is Heidi Manley uh Heidi is the chief of USA study abroad which is part of the US state Department's Bureau of educational and cultural Affairs um and she serves as the lead for American student mobility within the state department and she oversees uh two pretty fantastic programs the Gilman program um as well as the critical language scholarship
• 01:00 - 01:30 program which I did not realize you launched in 2006 Heidi um so Heidi I'm going to turn things over to you here great thanks so much nol and uh apologies I just had a mini heart attack because my computer internet connection just died so hopefully I'll hang on while I deliver my very brief remarks um so again let me just start by saying um thank you nol and recognizing you and all of our partners at Penton State's College of agricultural Sciences we are deeply grateful for this collaboration
• 01:30 - 02:00 and for your role in working with us to highlight the critical issue of food security I also want to thank our colleagues at The Institute of International Education for their steadfast dedication as our implementing partner for the Benjamin a Gilman International Scholarship program it is under the aaces of the Gilman program that we are able to bring you this series and I want to thank my own team especially Dan Pini and Teresa Ganon for their hard work and creativity in putting together this overall hybrid series again welcome everyone we are so
• 02:00 - 02:30 pleased to have you with us here today as we begin the Gilman foreign policy in Focus virtual seminar series on Global Food security this four-part webinar series will explore the crucially important issue of Global Food security my name is Heidi Manley and I am the chief of USA study abroad within the US Department of state's Bureau of educational Affairs educational and cultural Affairs so um through this role I oversee a number of our state
• 02:30 - 03:00 Department's efforts to increase and broaden American students taking part in study abroad including expanding overseas destinations through our USA study abroad programs such as the ones n mentioned the Gilman program and our STS program as well as our ideas program which builds study abroad capacity at us colleges and universities among other initiatives these programs support our broader US foreign policy through the individual experiences and relationships formed through International Education
• 03:00 - 03:30 the global perspectives developed among students studying abroad translate directly into a highly competent and internationally Adept diplomatic and Technical Workforce capable of addressing the complex challenges facing our nation and the world but don't just take my word for it secretary blinkin is unequivocal when he talks about the importance of study abroad he says simply put International Education is a crucial part of our diplomacy and our national security and International
• 03:30 - 04:00 Education has never been a singular Endeavor the state department has wonderful scholarships and programs to encourage study abroad but our efforts are only successful because of our deep and meaningful Partnerships with the US higher education Community including institutions like Penn State it is with Penn State's collaboration and expertise that we bring you this series our hope is that you will come to understand that achieving Global Food security means that all people have access to Safe nutritious food to meet their dietary
• 04:00 - 04:30 needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life it is essential for poverty reduction economic growth and political stability last November the US Special Envoy for Global Food security Dr Carrie fer provided remarks as part of the Gilman program's inside US foreign policy series Dr fer is a powerful advocate for the notion that food security is a global challenge that requires a global solution but more importantly that no one country or
• 04:30 - 05:00 organization can solve this problem alone Dr fer speaks to this Collective responsibility when saying we need Farmers scientists policy makers and everyday citizens all working together it is with the wisdom of secretary blinkin and Dr fer in mind that we've developed this series we hope that you will attend the entire series and that it will inspire you and others to become part of the G Collective Global Food security solution and if you're a member of our Gilman alumni community please keep an ey eye out for a call for
• 05:00 - 05:30 applications for our us and overseas seminars on food security thank you all again for being here today and N back over to you thanks so much Heidi like I said this is really h a real privilege and honor to be a part of a pretty fantastic team of folks um you you may have noticed here in the chat there's a a link there so you'll get to see the BIOS from everybody we just heard from Heidi I'm going to share for a bit we'll hear from uh Mr Paul Mana who's joining us from Nairobi Kenya and Mr Aaron schel
• 05:30 - 06:00 who is joining us from Washington DC in the state department so you get to hear from a variety of perspectives from folks from several corners of the globe um so with that in mind I'm gonna get underway and sort of set the stage for the current status of Global Food security um so I I recognize Global Food security is a very uh complex um multifaceted
• 06:00 - 06:30 concept and we're going to start peeling back some of these layers um and as we're doing this there might be a lot of questions that arise feel free uh you'll see in the zoom uh tools there's a Q&A section please put questions that you have as we're going along in that section um and we'll use that uh to be able to facilitate a question and answer time at the end of the the session towards the end um additionally we want to recognize uh the lexity the
• 06:30 - 07:00 significance of this um I also come from a background where I I feel like learning is often best when it can be fun and engaging so with that in mind um I want to ask you all for a little favor right if you go to slido.com and enter this number or if you hit this QR code um which should join here that's going to open an application slido I want to make this as interactive as possible um as we're moving through here so uh go to slido.com and there's the number
• 07:00 - 07:30 there um and our first question that I have for you all is which state if you're in the United States are you joining us from or which country if you're from outside of the United States I realize there's sort of a critical mass of people joining from the United States so what state is represented okay California Massachusetts are taking Massachusetts we've got a good contingent here um if you're outside of the okay we got El Salvador Togo I'm seeing outside of the United States
• 07:30 - 08:00 um we've got Maryland Pennsylvania New York Massachusetts okay Spain Peru Denmark oh okay and we've Advanced so my next question is H using one emoji and only one emoji describe your ideal Vacation all right I realize for some of us in at least my neck of the woods we're still kind of it's It's pleasant but not it's still winter time so we kind of started thinking about thoughts towards vacation so what would be your
• 08:00 - 08:30 ideal vacation if you were to describe it with one emoji okay all right so we got lots of palm trees some mountains mountains in a stream uh napping seems to be a big strong front runner here um we got okay so good good foray of potential vacation ideas um as well as good representation from a a variety of of locations both within the United States and outside so um I appreciate that okay so we got SL figure it out
• 08:30 - 09:00 that'll that'll come back in in a few minutes here um so just to give you a little bit of idea again as we mentioned what we're going to cover over this next hour um I'm going to take a a look at sort of what is this current status of Global Food Security on a large scale we'll kind of look at some of the Big Data um we'll look at the terminology some of this may be very familiar for you some of this may be like this is your work every day and I want to recognize that but I also want to recognize it's important for all of us to get on to the same page so we'll we'll take a look um at sort of the
• 09:00 - 09:30 common terminology um Concepts to be aware of then we'll have a specific focus with Mr Paul Mana looking at Kenya then we'll hear from Mr Aon SCH from looking at sort of the US Department of State perspective and then we'll have time for question and answer so for my sort of perspective I've got three questions we're looking at what is food security what's the current state of Global Food security and what's being done to address Global Food security so this first question what is food security 's a couple of different
• 09:30 - 10:00 definitions that are used and a couple of different concepts um and it's important there's they're similar but there's some Nuance there so the first idea of what is hunger or undernourishment so this this terminology is often used and really it's it's measured by a dietary consumption is less than a predetermined threshold so oftentimes individual countries will set a a criteria based on number of calories consumed and so this can be um fluctuate based on gender
• 10:00 - 10:30 based on Age based on a whole variety of criteria usually it's somewhere in around about 2,000 kilo calories right or somewhere underneath where they're saying if if people are not reaching this threshold this level um then they're not having enough consumption of calories to be healthy so this is sort of the general concept here this is a little bit different from the idea of food security right and we heard this from from Heidi's remarks earlier that
• 10:30 - 11:00 when all people at all times have access to F sufficient safe nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life so this is a little bit more complex of a definition it's it's harder to measure and get an accurate numerical quantification of and there's also a cause and effect component to it where it's yes to have sufficient safe nutritious food but the end result the means to the end is to have a healthy and active life so with that in mind mind I have a little quiz for you all so with the same
• 11:00 - 11:30 slido here um my question for you all is what are the four components of food security so you've got 20 seconds starting now right um there's four components of food security nutrition or pick which one nutrition caloric intake diet and consumption availability access utilization stability environmental economic social location location location which of those four answers is um the four
• 11:30 - 12:00 components of food security all right and hopefully that worked for you all so we got 100% that you all were able to respond here so we'll we'll see oh maybe I was the only one who answered previously okay well hopefully we'll do better on the next time sorry I promise I haven't rigged this to win but so there are four components of food security availability access utilization and stability so we'll take
• 12:00 - 12:30 a look at each of those four components here um and because again this is is much more Nuance than just a a numeric quantification because it it each of these sorts of things vary based on a lot of circumstances so the first one availability of food so there's a technical definition here but it's really this idea does enough food exist um so it's not can I get to the food am I able to acquire it purchase it reach it it's is a food even exist is it being
• 12:30 - 13:00 produced so there's a lot of things that can influence us if there is a drought if there is flooding if there is conflict if there you know I am working in a field but then there's conflict I have to leave my farm in order to fight in a war if I need to um there's lots of things that would influence whether or not the food is being produced so is the food even being produced in the first place is this component of availability the second one is access to food so the food is being produced but
• 13:00 - 13:30 can I get to it right am I able to purchase it uh do I have the financial means to purchase it can I get to a store or a location where it's being purchased or where I can purchase it um it's there but can I get to it um some of you may have be familiar with this idea of food deserts right uh the US Department of Agriculture identifies food deserts as and when there's a population of 500 people and or 33% of the population lives in an area that is
• 13:30 - 14:00 one mile from a supermarket or grocery store in an urban area or more than 10 miles in rural areas so this is a component of access right the food might be in existence but can I get to it easily um do I have access to public transportation to get me there right so this is a component of access do I have a means of financial means of being able to afford it okay so the third we got availability access utilization is the third so
• 14:00 - 14:30 there's a nice technical definition here but it's really okay the food exists I can get to it is it able to help me have a healthy life um so this could be either I am able to get to a grocery store and get lots of fruits and veggies and healthy food but I'm choosing not to or there's something happening to me physiologically right if I'm in an area and I've um picked up a bacteria because
• 14:30 - 15:00 of something in the water or an illness or a virus or something and my body is not able to process it functionally right that that this this is a is my body able to process the food in order to have a healthy lifestyle and then the third is stability right availability access utilization stability does availability access and utilization exist at all times so we have those three things consistently so um hey I have fresh food available
• 15:00 - 15:30 except during a Dre right this would be an issue of availability and stability because it's not consistent all the time um I can afford food except towards the end of the month when I haven't gotten my paycheck um again this is an issue of access but it's stability right I have access except for the times when I don't have access okay so this is food security right and we're seeing these four concept available ility access utilization and
• 15:30 - 16:00 stability so what's the current state of food security that we're looking at globally this visual this graphic comes from a report from the food and agriculture organization of the United Nations um and if you're interested there's that QR code in the the bottom right of the screen is able to uh direct you to that report so this report comes out it's the state of food security and nutrition um it comes out every like September is and it's it's watched by a
• 16:00 - 16:30 lot of people it's developed by the food and agriculture organization with a lot of other organizations the world food program other organizations in connection and really that sort of sets the stage of this is what's happening for food security nutrition globally and so we can see this definition here looks at this idea of um of numbers of people who are reaching who are considered to be uh experiencing undernourishment right so can see the percentage of undernourishment in the orange or the
• 16:30 - 17:00 number of people undernourished so Co right 2020 we're seeing a big spike in numbers of people experiencing undernourishment that's probably not a surprise right both in terms of there's a physiological concerns but a lot of economic concerns social concerns how people are getting to markets how people are having financial means to get to markets right where we're seeing lots of sorts of things kind of globally but even before covid we see a number go
• 17:00 - 17:30 from 12% in 2005 down to 7.7% and then kind of levels off even increasing a little bit even before Co so what's going on in this time so hopefully the slid works better this time oops pardon me so what factors can increase influence an increase in food security so especially during that time right post 2015 2016 to 2019 but are
• 17:30 - 18:00 other things what are things that you all are aware of of factors that influence uh an increase of food insecurity so hopefully you're able to to use the slid over there and put in responses right what are you thinking in terms of things that um influence an increase in food insecurity okay so this is good we're getting lots of things right um drought unemployment income weather patterns economic changes conflict poverty the the big thing right that we're seeing here is climate change and
• 18:00 - 18:30 that's absolutely the um the main response right climate change was the most significant factor in influencing that where a difference of fluctuation of a few degrees can be the difference between somebody having um a full Harvest or none at all um precipitation patterns uh can be the difference between having hey I have food for my family I have food I'm able to sell at a market vers verus I have none right if a
• 18:30 - 19:00 drought comes and you don't have a a mechanism or a means of being able to ensure a consistent watering and irrigation of of uh products well that's going to have a huge impact on whether or not you're able to actually have a harvest I and have food so we have another question for you A lot of times in development circles they talk about the three se's of development challenges what are the three se's covid climate and conflict corruption cooperation and choices Capital competition and
• 19:00 - 19:30 creativity complexity collaboration and communication feel like reg just philin from Wants To Be A Millionaire here okay so we've got a mixture of answers the three the correct answer is covid climate and conflicts this is what the the three C's are considered to be um that this these these three things things have had a huge impact on a lot
• 19:30 - 20:00 of different factors related to the development but especially food security and currently there's less conversations now about covid right the the actual virus it's sort of moved into the sort of endemic phase but a lot of the economic ramifications are still lingering from what happened um and yes there's still sort of physiological concerns but it's it's still the effects of it are are still hanging on in many parts of the world um climate continues to be a factor that influences a lot related to food security and then also
• 20:00 - 20:30 conflict um and we can kind of see that moving in and we we'll hit that on a couple slides kind of showing each of those sorts of things so where is undernourishment most prevalent so um this visual I don't love it because there's a lot of phases and color very similar Hues but you can see subsaharan Africa has some of the highest percentages of the population experiencing undernourishment um and so maybe that's sort of a a familiar sort of visual um
• 20:30 - 21:00 some parts of southern Asia as well as some parts of Latin America um but and also if you look at the percentages the population experiencing or living in extreme poverty there's a lot of parallels right um a lot of this is connected and similar to sort of what resources are available um financially and um maybe even for individuals for governments to support populations for organizations to support populations who were seeing some parallels
• 21:00 - 21:30 there this map is so this this kind of shows the longterm this map um is from the world food program and again there's a a QR code there if you want to take a look at this and kind of look at it you can look at each of these different factors but it's highlighting different events that are happening related to conflict related to weather patterns um for acute uh concerns related to food security where there are a lot of places where okay on an ongoing basis where there's a fair amount of stability but
• 21:30 - 22:00 then there's a drought there's flooding there's conflict there's something that emerges and in in a very short period of time can really change what food security looks like for a population of people so a question for you what continent has the highest number of people facing food insecurity so Africa Asia Europe North America South America or Australia Oceana
• 22:00 - 22:30 I also recognize on my last slide that the Box went over New Zealand and my apologies if there's any kiwi here that you were your country was not seen on the map um okay which continent has the highest number of people facing food insecurity okay so a lot of people said Africa that's actually incorrect Asia has the highest number of people facing food insecurity which perhaps is surprising right especially when we're looking but then if you also realize well Asia also has just the highest number of people living in the continent
• 22:30 - 23:00 um depending numbers right you have about a third of the world's population living in Asia it's okay that that that could make sense um so the highest numbers of of people experiencing food insecurity um are living in Asia but we're also seeing this sort of representation around the world um and in order to sort of address these concerns of food insecurity there were a lot of questions um Millennium development goals the sustainable development goals were merged in 2015
• 23:00 - 23:30 with the target date of 2030 and you can see here these sorts of pieces of okay covid happened and these were sort of the projections then okay after covid maybe we can move to this line but then also the uh conflict in Ukraine that that had a huge disruption on grain and a lot of food globally um and you can see in certain regions like in Africa there's a lot of concern about increases beyond that there's a places Asia where there's hopes for decreasing um but
• 23:30 - 24:00 these projections kind of give an idea of like okay for 2030 there's still a lot of concerns about food insecurity and does food insecurity exist in the United States I know there's a lot of people logged on here joining in from the United States and the answer is yes right that um this is not just a concept that affects folks in other parts of the world that still um about 12.5% of the US population especially during that covid time this is 2019 to 2021 numbers um we experiencing some kind of food insecurity um so it's still very much a
• 24:00 - 24:30 real thing that um is maybe affecting folks in communities where you're located maybe households maybe your family has experienced food insecurity um so yes this is a real concern for all sort of corners of the globe um regardless where we're coming from and so again here's another QR code for a map looks at uh regions of the US that have higher and lower uh numbers of food insecurity um the blue being above average the green being below average rates so of food insecurity so last
• 24:30 - 25:00 question here what's being done to address Global Food insecurity a lot right and I don't want to put a a cute candy coating on things of like oh and we just need to do this one thing and everything will be great right like these are complex things um but recognizing there's a lot of people individuals organizations approaching this and for some of you this is like yes this is exactly the way and like others it's oh no not those folks right but looking at okay these are some of the ways people are approaching this so multilateral organiz ations like the World Bank world food program FAO um
• 25:00 - 25:30 governmental initiatives both domestically like on a local community based level but also internationally um I know from the US and I'm not going to speak more too much about this because I believe aerin's going to touch on this too but there's the US has a policy of looking at feed the future countries um and really trying to promote this on a in an international level um non-governmental organizations you might know them as nonprofits or Charities are are ways that people are working internationally but then also domestically locally
• 25:30 - 26:00 for-profit businesses this is true you hear sort of like B Corps or organization who are changing their business models to try and incorporate more sustainable practices I it's true for organizations like that but also for regular for-profit companies who are saying hey we are engaged in the work that we're doing what impact does that have on people are there ways that we can shift some of our business practices to be more um proactive more responsive to needs around us um you can see found foundations in philanthropy and I I really want to make
• 26:00 - 26:30 a point of recognizing that regular quote unquote regular people in their Community who care about their families who care about their Community who care about what's going on also have an incredible role and opportunity in terms of addressing aspects of food insecurity um by either asking questions or taking stands on certain topics or taking action in certain ways so my last question for you all who needs to respond to address food insecurity so you have a few options here governments businesses non-governmental
• 26:30 - 27:00 organizations communities individuals me meaning you not me old habashi but you um or all of the above um maybe you can kind of tell where I'm going with this one maybe we'll see all right and okay right we we got this idea right that this is there's no Silver Bullet one size fits-all sort of way to address
• 27:00 - 27:30 this but it it does take a a community of people and individuals and organizations working to uh address this so this is the slide that shows us the winner which is availability um so congratulations to that person and um with that we can we can look at uh we looked at what is food insecurity our food security what's the current state of intern National agriculture in terms of food security and what's being done to address Global
• 27:30 - 28:00 Food security so I have the the privilege here of being able to introduce our our next next guest here Mr Paul Maya I I've had the opportunity to know Paul for several years he is the founder and executive or director or director of the children's and Youth Empowerment Center in ner Kenya he has over 20 years work experience in the micro small and medium Enterprises sector and in Children and Youth Development Services he's had several quite a few Awards and honors uh including being selected for a the road
• 28:00 - 28:30 scholar as a road scholar for for England to attend Oxford University which perhaps you have heard of that as one of the most competitive scholarships on the planet really um so Paul it really is a privilege to have you here so thank you for joining us here thank you very much no I hope uh you can hear me clearly uh so So yeah thank
• 28:30 - 29:00 you uh I'd like to begin with uh discussing the issue of security put Security in a slightly roundabout way and uh the reason uh I'll do this is we we need to I think uh be clear about the terms that we
• 29:00 - 29:30 use and also that U the language that we use for such important issues is actually understood by everybody the same way so I I'll begin by talking about our program uh in Kenya uh which mainly works with uh young people who live in the streets Street
• 29:30 - 30:00 dwelling Children and Youth now if we take a you know normal explanation the kind of explanation that we we are used to um we would talk about the phenomenon of uh Street children uh uh has you know a problem of
• 30:00 - 30:30 poverty a family breakdown um urbanization and so on uh but uh I'd like to to point to something really important uh which is cultural and U as a way of highlighting uh the problem that um you know we have in having a meaningful
• 30:30 - 31:00 discourse about food security so in the past um the idea of children as young as four or five uh living alone in the streets um or having no families or nobody to take care of them would have
• 31:00 - 31:30 seemed absurd and let me explain why uh in my mother tongue we don't have distinct words for aunt or Uncle for instance so everybody who is a sister to my father would either be you know it's a a younger a
• 31:30 - 32:00 younger mother or older mother literally and the language that we use um and in the way that people would live this was this reflected a social reality so if something were to happen to my parents for instance in the older days there wouldn't even be a question you would immediately be absorbed in the
• 32:00 - 32:30 broader family so the idea that there can be children who have no belonging would seem very odd to the people you know who uh um the older generations and just to let me highlight that cu I think it's something really important to
• 32:30 - 33:00 understand and I will show why this is relevant uh to the issue of food security from the perspective you know that that I'm I'm coming from um my name is Paul Miner as um you're aware but uh in family gatherings when I was younger if I told an older person that my name
• 33:00 - 33:30 is Paul uh they wouldn't find that you know that would be quite an interesting they needed to know uh the family name because only you you get an identity U by being located within the family structure so the naming systems that we had uh were a way of being able to place
• 33:30 - 34:00 you to give you an identity uh within a broader setting so uh they needed you know quite literally I would be asked yes you say Paul but um who are you named after because in a traditional naming system um everybody
• 34:00 - 34:30 was had a very distinct location in the family structure in you know the lineages now why why am I bringing this up um so when when we give the kind of explanations that we have now of a phenomenon like that of you know young people who have not belonging and therefore by definition are actually
• 34:30 - 35:00 you know seriously put insecure and you know other kinds of issues um there's something more than just um the kind of explanations um that we give now is given a certain understanding of the way that you know the world is um and the you know let me again now uh
• 35:00 - 35:30 go a step further and show how the importance of um um having a a proper you know asking questions um that have cultural relevance uh is is very important in in addressing these kinds of issues so when when we started the program for you know
• 35:30 - 36:00 um or selling young people uh we we looked at government as the guarant the ultimate guarant of the programs that we were running and that is quite natural because you know we we are living in a modern modern the modern world and the nation state is meant to be the you know the the framework within
• 36:00 - 36:30 which solutions for the kinds of populations that you're dealing with uh uh is meant to be to be addressed but then again bear in mind that uh when you have the kinds of solutions that exist in a country that has a per capita GDP of $60,000 um in comparison with a country that has
• 36:30 - 37:00 a per capita GDP of $3,000 um you're dealing with fairly different phenomena here um and this is not just a quantitative issue it's not um that um you know the country that has a GDP of $3,000 needs to do things at a smaller scale but you know a similar manner
• 37:00 - 37:30 actually the differences are very qualitative as well and we we need to to think differently if we are to solve um you know the the problems uh such as food security uh and the the the issue here is that the you know the language of
• 37:30 - 38:00 power that's what I would like to call it you know the the the discourse that is well developed the way that you know we we think about the world and the tools you know the language that contains the tools with which we engage with a social and natural environment um may not not be what really makes sense all the
• 38:00 - 38:30 societies um and that has to be looked at very carefully because when the language that you use and the the the terms with which you try to understand and engage with the world do not tally with the reality that you live in then you have a problem and you
• 38:30 - 39:00 have a big problem and whatever people you know we we talk about poverty uh and we discuss poverty in terms of you know how many dollars you earn per day or you know per month whatever it is and you know that is very important but the real issue here is a problem of agency and the problem of agency is something
• 39:00 - 39:30 quite different and the reason why there is a serious problem of agency is that uh people are not able they don't have the tools with which to engage with their reality in an effective manner so as I said earlier um the traditional societies that you know um people have relied on for
• 39:30 - 40:00 Millennia centuries or Millennia had a very different structure and there were inbuilt mechanisms of being able to to address issues like those of children whose you know uh immediate family uh all parents have for one reason or another um lacked their ability to take care of them so that is
• 40:00 - 40:30 gone but the assumptions that we have about where people are today actually are not are not real and when um you know people call upon government and so on to solve problems in a manner that is similar to what they see in Europe and the US and so on um it's it's not very realistic
• 40:30 - 41:00 often um and people just don't have those ready tools and we need to reimagine the situation that we are in and create the tools that enable us deal with the situation uh that we are confronted with in a in a proper manner and realistic
• 41:00 - 41:30 and effective way now uh let me see that um um there are definite you know just very practical issues um that that have to be dealt with fairly straightforward and for Kenya if I could just give a little bit of a background in around 1900 we had the whole you know the whole country of
• 41:30 - 42:00 Kenya had about three million people uh today we have about 55 million people that's the population the country um in the rural areas like where our program is located about 70% of the population relies on agriculture now the um prop portion of the land surface land in Kenya that
• 42:00 - 42:30 is suitable for agriculture is just around 10% of the whole country the rest is arid and semi arid and 80% of Kenya's population um is just concentrated in this little strip of land that is about 10% of the of the country's uh area this it's a narrow strep of land um you know um between Nairobi and it
• 42:30 - 43:00 goes Northwest towards Lake Victoria and everybody you know all Industries all the major towns you know all the agriculture just concentrated here and more and more and more people you know it's just the population growth in Kenya has just been absolutely staggering you know it was the time that Kenya had the highest population growth in in in the world so you know it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see what is happening
• 43:00 - 43:30 here and what this means in terms of food security uh you know logically um just for perspective uh there was a chronological you know the a study of um um land productivity Western Kenya um you know they followed up you know the productivity of land from when there were you know Forest had just
• 43:30 - 44:00 been cleared until the present day and there was a drop in between you know 60 to 80% of you know the um drop in in maze production so you know as the population grows more and more people are squeezed in you know this little piece of land and the land is becoming less and less productive for people who are primarily agriculture you know they rely on
• 44:00 - 44:30 agriculture so now the thing here is that uh there is definitely you know there a a very a practical issue that needs to be addressed um but the terms in which you know the language that we use and the tool tools that we need to come to grips with this problem are not
• 44:30 - 45:00 straightforward and we cannot use the um you know we can't just import the ideas that are developed you know in Europe and the us because of the cultural dominance you know those you know that that is what you know some of us in we come we learn agricultural economics or whatever it is and um but you know the realities on the ground um are
• 45:00 - 45:30 very different and um we are dealing with a population that is um has a serious problem of agency so for instance in if you come to near where both of the young people that we work with come from you know these are the informal settlements um in Ying uh even if you have a really nice agriculture program how do you link you
• 45:30 - 46:00 know the the people who are living in this informal settlements with whatever solution that we coming up with and it's not straightforward at all so uh uh Noel maybe if I could ask you is my time exhausted if that's all right can we do you mind if we press pause on this and maybe we can hear from you from the the question answer if we have extra time all right yeah yeah thank you so much Paul I I really really appreciate uh
• 46:00 - 46:30 your your thoughts there that's a really very insiteful and I really appreciate it I was I was off camera but not in my head the entire time so thank you thank you um I I I now have the the the privilege of uh introducing Mr uh Aaron schwobel who is a career Foreign Service Officer for the Department of State since 2002 currently serves as the food policy and security section head in the office of agricultural policy his office supports US foreign policy objectives by
• 46:30 - 47:00 developing strategies and solutions that enable nearly $200 billion dollars in agricultural exports millions of us jobs a sustainable agricultural landscape and science-based approaches to Innovation um he's married he has three children and identifies as a Michigan native so Erin thank you so much for being here hi thank you very much uh for having me today it's a pleasure to be part of this uh distinguished channel uh distinguished panel sorry um you know
• 47:00 - 47:30 it's a great opportunity as well I've spent most of my career overseas this is only my second assignment here in Washington to talk to a mostly American audience and of course very happy to talk to the international participants as well but to describe to a mostly domestic audience what it is that we do all day I think you've been hearing about what the problem is um and and I'll get into get into it with you a bit about what the solutions are that we see or the initiatives that we have underway and I think it's really important that young people uh I think most of you are students uh be engaged on these topics
• 47:30 - 48:00 whether it's a science major who could be contributing to innovations that could solve these problems or you know someone who's maybe more focused on international relations and a way to get into it from a policy perspective so um already um Dr Bashi has described a little bit what our office does and I'll get into more detail on that later but first i'm going to talk about you know big picture of of US Government initiatives to address the problem which is a combination of various agencies and offices and I should flag from the start that I represent the foreign policy
• 48:00 - 48:30 aspects of food insecurity so I do not have expertise on you know government programs to feed people in the United States I think there's other speakers and other weeks of this program that have some expertise on that and can answer your questions on that so let's start off with the big picture view of the global food security situation and the US government initiatives um I would guess that many of you support us programs abroad when targeted and effective but likely some of you are skeptical of money spent abroad when we still have needs at home but my argument
• 48:30 - 49:00 to you will be that policy in this area is based on both a humanitarian impulse and a pragmatic National Security one and either one I think is sufficient justification for these programs to take place which in the big picture are not necessarily an enormous part of the US government budget or or of your taxes uh in fact US government assistance abroad is generally much much smaller uh than what people guess when they say that we're wasting a lot of money or something like that I think it's less than 1% of the US federal budget when
• 49:00 - 49:30 most people guess it's 10 or 20% hunger anywhere does impact us all as President Biden said at the UN last year in every country in the world if parents can't feed their children Nothing Else Matters right that's the absolute number one thing a parent is going to be worrying about is hungry children and secretary blinkin recently said Secretary of State blinkin a parent who can't put food on the table for their children picks up the family and moves because it's the most basic thing the most important thing that they can do and they will do it however they have to do it and that
• 49:30 - 50:00 means moving Halfway Around the World they will but that contributes to unprecedented migration flows that we're facing around the world so of course the United States has issues at the southern border uh Europe has issues uh folks coming across boats from from Africa and and coming from elsewhere and these are you know to a lar extent people are quite desperate and it's actually in our interest to make the situation often at very very low cost better and more sustainable in those countries so that people can lead uh reasonably happy and productive lives in their home country
• 50:00 - 50:30 rather than feeling the need to move out of desperation a problem that very much well could get worse as as climate change impacts on yields and so forth so we're in a situation of looking at probably 10 billion people on this planet by 2050 which you know probably sounds a long way in the future but of course steadily getting up to that number um Global demand for food could well increase 50% in that time period a combination of more people and more people in the middle class who have higher Ambitions about what they're eating and yet yields could go down you
• 50:30 - 51:00 know per acre per hectare as much as 30% based on more droughts wild wildfires catastrophic storms so 50% increase in need and a 30% reduction per acre in yield uh you can get some extra acres of land to cultivate but of course some of the way you would do that would be like by deforesting the Amazon and I'm sure that's not NE necess thing that that that most of you are are interested in so how do we get better yields in order
• 51:00 - 51:30 to solve that problem so what's the US government doing about this first of all we have a lot of long-term development projects to increase food security through resilient production and nutrition especially in developing countries building better Food Systems so there's a lot of food wastage most of it in the developing world is in transportation and lack of refrigeration so in a country like India you could lose half the food on the way from um you know where grown to where it's going to in a more developed market like the United States you could lose 30 50% of
• 51:30 - 52:00 the food just on wastage restaurants throwing food out you throwing food out I mean since I've started working on this topic I feel uh intensely guilty when I throw out the last half of a bunch of bananas or last half of a loaf of bread and try to find you know alternative ways to eat that um in addition we're also addressing acute food security crisis so when you turn on the news or or or flip scroll through your social media and see news and you see like a fam a war in an area that's causing food us is actually an enormous provider to those sorts of crises we are
• 52:00 - 52:30 the largest contributor to the United Nation's world food program which is the main uh agency to get food quickly to someplace that's had something terrible happened there whether it be a natural disaster war or famine we accounted for uh onethird of its total contributions in 2023 half its budget in 2022 and in general over time have been consistently the largest contributor we also in 2022 joined by dozens of other countries successfully pushed for a road map for Global Food security I'll run
• 52:30 - 53:00 quickly Through The Seven Elements of that uh number one is for countries to give more money to places like world food program number two is to give more ink kind donations that is actual food a lot of developed countries have surplus food that they can buy from the farmers and then uh give to the world's hungriest that's a popular program domestically American farmers like to have their their excess food bought by the government and then of course popular as a humanitarian gesture overseas number three element of that
• 53:00 - 53:30 was to keep markets open no export bans on food and F fertilizer and to ensure safe Maritime transportation in the Black Sea I'll go into that in more detail but basically as long as food is Flowing around the world um you know yes there's a market mechanism but there's also a charity mechanism as well that's better for everyone if each country is sort of hoarding what it has because it's scared and concerned then you don't get the overall benefits of of food moving to where it's needed the most um
• 53:30 - 54:00 the next element is increasing fertilizer production you might remember especially in 2022 there was a lack of fertilizer there's a big New York Times article on this a couple weeks a couple months ago about people in Africa Farmers not having enough fertilizer at affordable prices for them to be able to plant their crops uh number five increasing efforts to have sustainable transformation of systems more resilient more climate mitigation climate smart uh number number six is similar more research and development on that and seven a little bit underrated full
• 54:00 - 54:30 transparency on data and Market development so when we all across countries across companies and so forth are sharing data um that helps us address problems already mentioned um by Professor was the feed the future which is our Premier Global hunger and food security initiative mainly run by the US agency for International Development but with 11 other US Federal departments and agencies uh that has lifted 23 million people out of poverty um in the years it's been in effect reduced extreme
• 54:30 - 55:00 poverty by 19% hunger by 30% and child stunting by 26% in in the regions of the countries where it works more on the climate change issue we have an initiative called aim for climate agriculture Innovation mission for climate as you may know something like onethird of all Greenhouse uh emission gas emissions come from the agricultural system that's a really shockingly large number yet had a tiny portion of the efforts to address climate change I think I've heard about 3% financially are focused on
• 55:00 - 55:30 agriculture so much much more investment is put on improving Transportation you know electric vehicles and so forth and power generation systems wind solar and so forth but very very little money actually goes into improving agricultural systems so the US and the United Arab Emirates uh that's where I most recently worked actually was in Dubai in the United Emir Emirates launched excuse me aim for climate two years ago at cop 26 and then at cop 28 a couple months ago in Dubai announced new Partnerships and increased uh donations so this is
• 55:30 - 56:00 companies charity organizations and countries coming together to kind of make sure that we have Synergy on projects we deploy the best technology to the most needy areas to offset some of this agriculture you know there there are you know Farmers for example in Asia who are using very Antiquated methods that produce a lot of greenhouse gas emissions and if we can get um the right technology and the right money to that area we can really start to solve those problems and then the the third major
• 56:00 - 56:30 initiative is something called vax which is the vision for adapted crops and soils we started this last year with the US government the African Union and the United Nations food and agriculture organization the idea there is uh we're starting off in Africa to identify indigenous crops that are the most nutritious but also most resilient to climate impacts and invest in healthy soils um in order to um deal with problems related to climate change but also more more longstanding problems there's some crops that people
• 56:30 - 57:00 are eating for example in Africa that uh fill your belly but they they're not actually very nutritious and to try to focus on the most nutritious ones that are also compatible with diets of you know what people are are um traditionally or habitually used to eating um so that's the big picture I'm just going to drill down for about two or three minutes uh before I I run out of my time slot here to talk about uh some other things we do in my office so we have three main lines of effort number one agricultural trade it's an essential component of food security I
• 57:00 - 57:30 mentioned that a little bit um promotion of US exports is an important service we do for the American people we work with our colleagues and US embassies around the world to promote US exports uh that's a major part of what keeps us Farmers afloat and financially viable it's a very up and down business farming and farmers can go uh out of business and if they're not producing um you know often times that space gets turned into shopping or malls uh you know more more houses and then we lose aable land so
• 57:30 - 58:00 it's important to keep that land profitable because it really does feed the world so every billion dollars of us agricultural export supports uh 7,000 jobs and also adds an additional billion dollars the economy through through secondary purchases you know the farmers purchasing seeds and equipment and so on so we continue to advocate for for uh you know having open markets uh between countries I I obviously it's a very very complicated topic lots of trade negotiations it's certainly not open and
• 58:00 - 58:30 free uh globalization or anything like that but it's important just to keep things flowing and moving uh we've seen for example some countries put export bands on rice and that has spiked up rice prices globally second line of effort is biotechnology which is Gen genetically engineered food which is a kind of fast track around traditional plant breeding I know this is somewhat controversial in the United States and in Europe but it's important to recognize that there's no food that you eat that is actually um you know natural
• 58:30 - 59:00 the way it was a thousand years ago everything got to where it is through plant breeding um and so this is often just a way to cut through you know rather than doing a hundred-year plant breeding process but to do a couple years and there are ways to ensure that that is within you know certain guidelines and it doesn't include you know putting uh part of a pig's DNA in a a corn plant or something you know kind of that wild but rather it's specifically working within cornn and seeing okay there's this Strand and we can catch something from them and this
• 59:00 - 59:30 is actually in our view absolutely essential to solving the climate problem when I talked about 30% lower yields and 50% higher um you know uh consumption of food um you know for example can you make a tomato that instead of rotting at 85 degrees or above rots at 95 degrees and above we can do that we can make um you know uh plants that have a little bit more vitamins in them they're more nutritious just the same way you buy milk in the grocery store often it has some vitamins
• 59:30 - 60:00 added to it and even more importantly uh a lot of these use less pesticide less herbicide less water less fertilizer and higher yield so we're committed to spreading that around the world because frankly we do just don't believe there's a way to solve the problems um organic food is great I buy some of it but if the whole world was bought was you know um had crops planted that was organic no GMO food you could not feed 10 billion you couldn't even feed 7 billion people
• 60:00 - 60:30 so uh what What's Your solution to to to coming up with that uh you know solving that problem and finally I'd be remiss if I didn't you know bring up Russia's war on Ukraine which is a major cause of food insecurity over the last couple years negative impacts on food security spiking prices when you saw very high food inflation in 2022 and early 2023 um that was mainly the cause according to the United Nations 23 million more people are facing hunger uh through 2030 because of the invasion we
• 60:30 - 61:00 were instrumental in creating and keeping the Black Sea grain initiative going and also its successor a humanitarian Corridor after Russia left the Black Sea grain initiative to keep Russia's grain flowing through the Black Sea despite a lot of uh Russian missile attacks on the port infrastructure on the grain silos literally just destroying grain that hungry people needed um and we're proud of our role in keeping that going which is essential for Ukraine's economy more importantly essential for the world so I'll um stop
• 61:00 - 61:30 it there and I think turn it back over to NL for starting the Q&A over I well thank you very much Aon I really appreciate your your thoughts here and your perspective and you're getting a very high level perspective from from a us uh perspective so I really appreciate that um we are we're actually at time so I want to be respectful of of everyone's time and if you're thinking oh man but I want to continue to have this conversation guess what you are in luck
• 61:30 - 62:00 um so the second session will take place in uh three weeks time February 23rd the same time 1M Eastern we'll be having a conversation about climate change and Global Food security the Third on March 29th with uh gender and Global Food security and then the fourth looking at the role of government and Global Food Security on April 26 so there's three more sessions to cons continue uh this conversation there's a link in the chat here um if you were past a link and you want to know when to how to register and
• 62:00 - 62:30 things like that you can click on that and register um I really do want to thank the guests who joined me here to to Heidi to Paul to Aaron thank you so much I really I feel like I got a lot out of this I really appreciate that um and we look forward to seeing you all uh in a couple weeks so thank you all very much
• 62:30 - 63:00 that