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Global food crisis: when food isn't merely expensive
Shortages as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine have aggravated a pre-existing global food crisis that could push a billion people — most of them in the poorest parts of the world — into starvation. It's not just one thing: droughts, COVID-induced supply chain snarls, and high energy prices have all gotten us to this point. And it’ll get worse later on if we don’t find ways to future-proof global food systems.
So, what are we gonna do about it? Several experts weighed in during the livestream discussion "Hunger Pains: The growing global food crisis," hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Indeed, we are moving toward a long-term scenario in which countries will simply be unable to produce and export as food as they are now, said Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And that's going to have political consequences.
If more people around the world can't get enough to eat, Eurasia Group and GZERO President Ian Bremmer warned that'll erode the very fabric of globalization — the global middle class. What's more, he added, when people get hungrier, they'll get angrier, and less interested in global solutions to their problems, which will, in turn, be reflected in their choice of government.
The magnitude of the challenge is daunting, said Suzman. Just think of the millions of children who'll become stunted from malnutrition, which means their brains will never become fully developed. He thinks the scale and size of the response so far fall far short of what's needed.
Ertharin Cousin, former head of the UN's World Food Programme, noted how the pandemic laid bare the failure of regional food systems to feed everyone, and now of course the war in Ukraine has made everything worse, for instance by slashing the WFP's capacity to supply food to the needy without Ukrainian grains. If we don't completely rethink the ways we produce and distribute food, she said we may soon transition from an affordability crisis to an availability crisis.
For her part, Kathryn Hollifield, from the World Bank's Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, unpacked the systemic challenges that are hurting the odds of meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by the 2030 deadline.
Thomas Njeru, who knows a thing or two about smallholder farming because he grew up on a small farm in his native Kenya before co-founding a micro-insurance firm for smallholders, called for big agribiz to do more to increase the productivity of smallholders so we don't end up with situations like tomatoes costing four times more in Nairobi than in Chicago.
Finally, David Laborde, a research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, predicted that we have already reached peak global food inflation, although prices might rise further at the local level in some countries. He has a very clear message for governments thinking of export bans to address shortages: don't do it, because in the long run it'll hurt your farmers too.
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Why we're in the current food crisis — and who could fix it
Sylvain Charlebois knows a thing or two about food. He's a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, and tweets as @FoodProfessor. So, what does he think about the current global food crisis?
It started two years ago, when COVID disrupted supply chains, but the acute shortages that are driving up prices are more recent, he explained in a conversation for GZERO with Diana Fox Carney, Senior Advisor at Eurasia Group.
Why? Charlebois cites climate issues that hurt inventories, higher shipping costs due to the COVID hangover of weakened supply chains, Russia's war in Ukraine pushing prices up across the board, and "nationalistic hoarding" of staples by certain countries.
And it's going to get worse, especially in North Africa and the Middle East. So, what, if anything, can we do about it?
For Charlebois, the geopolitical wildcard is China, the only country with enough influence to change everything in a matter of weeks. The US could do more too, but in his view there's just too much politics for America to move on anything quickly.
Food prices, he predicts, will continue to rise for quite some time, because if this were an ice hockey match, we're probably only at the end of the first period.
For more, check out Hunger Pains, GZERO Media's special coverage of the world’s growing food crisis.
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- Global food crisis: when food isn't merely expensive - GZERO Media ›
COP26 vibes so far: "What's it worth to save everything we have?"
What's the state of play so far at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow? Why is it so urgent to speed up climate action before it's too late? What does climate justice for developing nations really mean? And how can companies do their part without greenwashing? Several experts debated these and other questions during a Global Stage livestream conversation hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with Microsoft during the opening week of COP26, moderated by Eurasia Group senior adviser Diana Fox Carney.
Gerald Butts, vice chairman of Eurasia Group, explained the difference between climate justice and just transition to clean energy, and how the political debate on climate has moved to who's responsible to what we're going to do about it.
Atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist at The Nature Conservancy and Director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University., offered her thoughts on progress made since Paris 2015, why everything we do matters because climate is loading the dice against us, the need to set goals despite the human tendency to procrastinate, why we need to put value on climate because everything we have is worth saving, and why individuals should use their voices more than their actions to advocate for change on climate.
Naoko Ishii, Director of Center for Global Commons, and Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo, detailed how we need to persuade the Japanese people to come up with a climate agenda they can own, and how to integrate the value of natural capital into economic decision-making by putting a price on carbon.
Microsoft chief environmental officer Lucas Joppa talked about why it's time for corporations to go from pledges to performance on climate action, why the private sector's role should be building climate solutions for the public sector, the importance of technology to move the needle on corporate sustainability, and why training the workforce in green skills should be a shared responsibility.
DRC member of parliament and former speaker Jeanine Mabunda Lioko discussed the paradox of a global green economy that'll still need a lot of raw materials from Africa, the facts and figures that illuminate the climate justice question, and why some climate goals are reachable for the continent — just not developing with only renewable energy.
Catherine McKenna, former Canadian minister of Infrastructure and Communities, spoke about the huge opportunity to scale up public-private partnerships on climate with blended finance, the need to track progress on top of disclosure to prevent greenwashing, and the right incentives for behavioral change on climate.- Viewpoint: What to watch at COP26 - GZERO Media ›
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Is net zero really possible? Watch our live event
As COP26 nears, the need for real climate action has never been more urgent. There are reasons for hope, but many scientists believe the ambitious goal of net zero emissions by 2050 is unattainable without immediate and significant change. Governments, financial institutions, and private sector companies alike have all recognized the need for a multistakeholder approach to solving this crisis of a lifetime.
Watch "Climate Crisis: Is net zero really possible?" a one-hour virtual livestream, hosted by GZERO Media and Microsoft as part of the Global Stage series, to hear scientists, corporate leaders and policymakers debate this question and offer critical perspectives on the way forward. Live on Tuesday, November 2nd at 11am ET, we'll break down what "net zero" means, take stock of where the world is on the path to carbon neutrality, and discuss critical steps needed to make real progress.
Speakers include:
- Diana Fox Carney, Senior Advisor, Eurasia Group
- Gerald Butts, Vice-Chairman, Eurasia Group
- Katharine Hayhoe, Atmospheric Scientist, Professor and Director of the Climate Science Center, Texas Tech University
- Naoko Ishii, Director of Center for Global Commons, and Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo
- Lucas Joppa, Chief Environmental Officer, Microsoft
- Jeanine Mabunda Lioko, Member of Parliament for Bumba, DRC, Former President of the National Assembly of the DRC
- Catherine McKenna, former Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, Canada
Climate Crisis: Is net zero really possible?
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
11 am ET / 8 am PT
To watch live on November 2, go to: https://www.gzeromedia.com/globalstage/
Stay informed on upcoming live discussions from GZERO Media: sign up for updates and reminders about GZERO Media's events.