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Innovation: cause for optimism amid the global food crisis
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Innovation: cause for optimism amid the global food crisis

How long will food prices keep rising? Will food itself become scarce? There's a lot of doom and gloom these days about the global food crisis, made even worse by Russia's war in Ukraine. But there are some reasons to be hopeful, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said during a livestream conversation hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the organization he leads.

Why do the world's poorest pay more for the same food?
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Why do the world's poorest pay more for the same food?

Smallholder farmers in developing countries currently produce about 30% of the world's food. But they are way less productive than large-scale farmers in the developed world. 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, says boosting the productivity of smallholders could up global food output by 30% — more than enough to cover the 10% deficit we now face.

Global food crisis: when food isn't merely expensive
Past Events

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.

If we don't act fast to help smallholder farmers, developing world might soon run low on food
Hunger Pains

If we don't act fast to help smallholder farmers, developing world might soon run low on food

Ertharin Cousin, former head of the UN's World Food Programme, doesn't like when people talk about the handoff between humanitarian response and development response. Why? Because that imperils those caught in between the two, such as smallholder farmers now barely survived the pandemic and are now struggling with the global food price crisis. Cousin says we must meet what she refers to as the "midterm" challenges so months from now we don't transition from "a food affordability crisis to a food availability crisis."