Global Food for Thought

Live Blog Post - Every Farmer Wants What I Have

By Jennifer Lentfer, Senior Writer, Oxfam America’s Aid Effectiveness team; Editor, Politics of Poverty blog

This post is recap of the "Managing Risks Associated with Volatile Weather, Changing Climates, and Resource Scarcity" panel at our fifth Global Food Security Symposium 2014 in Washington, DC.

Two of Patrick F. O’Toole’s children and six of his grandchildren still live on the “family farm” near the Colorado River headwaters. This, he told The Chicago Council Global Food Security Symposium today, is what farmers want—to enable next generations to be connected to the land.

O’Toole told the audience of policymakers in Washington, DC, that another important part of farmers’ identity is to be problem solvers in the long- and short-term. Even though farmers look at resources with an intergenerational lens, they have immediate concerns that require attention.

There is no greater concern for farmers these days than climate change and the resulting effects on their land and livelihoods. O’Toole described how his farm has already seen its wettest and driest seasons in its history in this decade. As a result of this volatility, he and most other farmers in the West of the US are already managing for increased risk.

Live Blog Post - Climate-Smart Food Security

By Sarah Small, Food Tank Research Associate

This post is recap of the "Climate-Smart Food Security" panel at our fifth Global Food Security Symposium 2014 in Washington, DC.

At the Chicago Council’s Global Food Security Symposium today in Washington, DC, a panel on “Climate-Smart Food Security” addressed the role of family farmers in mitigating the effects of climate change including: climate-smart approaches already being used by smallholder farmers, opportunities to preserve natural resources, and the need for a “brown revolution.”

Panelists included: Howard W. Buffett, president of Buffet Farms Nebraska LLC; Jason Clay, senior vice president of Markets and Food at World Wildlife Fund; Strive Masiyiwa, chairman and founder of Econet Wireless; Gerald C. Nelson, a principal author of Advancing Global Food Security in the Face of a Changing Climate; Danielle Nierenberg, president of Food Tank; and Judith D. Schwartz, author at Chelsea Green Publishing.

Live Blog Post - The Climate-Food Nexus and What It Means for Conflict, Economic Growth, and Sustainability

By Maria Antip, Sorbonne University, International Relations, MS

This post is recap of the "The Climate-Food Nexus and What It Means for Conflict, Economic Growth, and Sustainability" panel at our fifth Global Food Security Symposium 2014 in Washington, DC.

The first session of the 2014 Symposium brought together a renowned panel with a wide range of backgrounds including a journalist, two private sector representatives , an NGO executive, a farmer, and a scientist.

The panel aimed to assess the risk and prioritize the opportunities for global food security in light of climate change. Michael Gerson, columnist at The Washington Post and ONE senior fellow, chaired the session, kicking  off with a bold statement that even smallholder farmers in remote developing places can adopt conservation practices. The focus on smallholder farmers continued and the panel reached the consensus that if we teach climate smart practices to farmers, and they understand the benefits, then they will adopt them.

President & CEO of Save the Children, Carolyn Miles,  stressed that women and children are the most vulnerable victims of weather disaster and hunger. She went on to stress that the first 1,000 days of a child’s life are critical—and after the age of 3, the damage from malnutrition is irreversible.

The Chicago Council’s #GlobalAg summit in one word? Innovation.

By David Hong, Policy Manager, ONE Campaign
This was originally posted on ONE Campaign Blog.

Yesterday, I had the fortunate opportunity to attend The Chicago Council Global Food Security Symposium 2013, an annual event that brings some of the brightest and most innovative thinkers (and doers) to Washington, D.C. With an introductory message from USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah and keynote remarks from Helene Gayle, CEO of CARE; Lauren Bush Lauren, founder of FEED; and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, this year’s event was global agriculture’s version of the Oscars.

Advancing global food security through science, trade and business was the theme of this year’s event and there were several panel discussions featuring a diverse cast: academics and scientists; CEOs of start-up companies and nonprofits; and government officials. If you want, you can watch a webcast of the entire event here.

There were too many ideas and discussions to comprehensively document in this post, but one overarching theme was the power and vitality of innovation in addressing global hunger. Throughout the day, different speakers addressed the need to breathe creativity into one of the world’s most intractable problems. Fortunately, the rapid advances in technology and the sciences offer unprecedented opportunities to alleviate hunger and extreme poverty. Most of us can agree that the current model of global food production and distribution is not working if 870 million people are undernourished. Below are some exciting examples of innovation in the agriculture and food security world:

Down with the Silos: Talk of Integration at Global Food Security Symposium

For more information about the Chicago Council's 2013 Global Food Security Symposium, please visit here or follow @globalagdev for up-to-date information about global food security issues. 

By Rachel Friedman, EcoAgriculture Partners 

Collaboration, local innovation, and integration across scales were themes that permeated this year’s Global Food Security Symposium organized by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. It marked the launch of the report, Advancing Global Food Security: The Power of Science, Trade, and Business, which laid out a blueprint for action targeted at policy leadership (specifically in the U.S.) to address issues of food security and nutrition.

According to co-chair of the Global Agriculture Development Initiative Catherine Bertini’s opening remarks, the Council sees three things as central to agricultural transformation: science, trade, and business. The report itself calls for ‘sustainable intensification’ of agriculture, referring to an increase in production, nutrition, and income, with more efficient use of inputs and resources, lessening the environmental impacts and boosting resilience to a changing climate. This “broadening of agriculture’s mandate” includes the full range of benefits beyond production, and was a key topic of the day’s discussions.

Live Blog - US must lead positive change throughout the World

By Firdavs Kabilov from Uzbekistan

As the 21st century world sees rapid population growth, it faces the dual challenge of feeding the growing population and alleviating poverty. Provided that the capacity of the Earth is finite, innovate ways of food production are required. The Green Revolution, which occurred between the 1940s and the late 1970s, oversaw a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives that resulted in huge global food progress. However, it left two very important questions behind which are very relevant in today’s world: environmental conservation and nutrition. Today, we need to produce more nutritious food with fewer resources. Uplifting the livelihood of small-holder farmers (mainly in South Asia and Africa), which represent 50 percent of the world’s poor, is also very important for US economic and security interests.

Live Blog - Leveraging science for agriculture at the ground level

By Keron Bascombe from Trinidad 

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs hosted its Global Food Security Symposium on “Capitalizing the Power of Science, Trade and Business to End Hunger and Poverty”. The organizers have brought together numerous experts from around the world, all working towards hunger and poverty issues as sustainable change agents.

The first panel of this morning’s event asked introductory questions of the esteemed members of the panel. The group consisted of Barbara Schaal, Brett Begemann, Cutberto Garza, Rob Horsch, Mauricio Antonio Lopes, Lindiwe Majele Sibanda and Ren Wang.The most memorable question was posed to Dr. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda: “How should agri-research be adopted to aid smallholder farmers?”

Live Blog - Is there a New Trade Opportunity?

By Meerim Shakirova from Kyrgyzstan

Many of us want global trade to be more environmentally friendly, fairer to workers in developing countries and committed to preserving our cultural differences. Environmental activists point out that shipping increases carbon dioxide, something that globalization`s proponents ignore.  Others point to the ways in which developed countries have benefited more so than their counterparts in the developing world and argue that global trade is fixed in order to further enrich wealthy countries and further impoverish poor ones.

How can we capitalize the power of trade to end hunger and poverty?  Is there any way to make the global trade system towork for the very poor as well as for the very rich? These and other questions were raised during the Chicago Council on Global Affairs' Global Food Security Symposium 2013, which took place on Tuesday in Washington D.C. 

Live Blog - Chicago Council: The challenges are immense, but our capacity is unlimited, says Secretary Vilsack

Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder, Food Tank

Tom Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) painted a complex, challenging, but also hopeful landscape of the food and agriculture policy of the United States. His keynote address highlighted major accomplishments: the quadrupling of money going to agriculture development in developing countries (it now totals over one billion dollars), the discovery of 14 different varieties of wheat that are more resistant to wheat rust, and the formation of 70 partnerships between private sector companies and the USDA to improve production and productivity.

Live Blog - Chicago Council: Trade and Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities, Final Symposium Panel

By Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank 

The final panel discussion of the Chicago Council Global Food Security Symposium discussed the relationship between trade and agriculture. Chaired by the former Executive Director of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ann Veneman, the panel addressed the potentials and challenges of trade and agriculture.

Veneman noted near the beginning of the discussion that agriculture is often a make-or-break issue in trade agreements, which was also emphasized by the other panelists. Dr. Yaneer Bar-Yam, President of New England Complex Systems Institute, joked, “You don’t need me here to tell you it’s a complex world,” and highlighted research done showing the relationship between food prices and political and social unrest. The two critical factors in this relationship are the conversion of corn to ethanol in the U.S. and the impact of speculation on commodity markets.