Friday, October 15, 2010

WorConversation: More food, better food ld Food Prize:

Conversation: More food, better food – improving and preserving quality


Philip Nelson – Professor, Purdue University
Great Advances in Ag production but much more needs to be done in the food chain.  How do we improve micro nutrients.  Cambodia had bumper crop of rice but lost 1/2 because there was no way to get it to market. 

Florence Chenoweth – Minister of Agriculture, Liberia
She is trying to rebuild the Ag sector in the face a a region with severe conflict.  When she was 17 she heard about hunger that showed her her future .  She had career day at school and a man came and talked about hunger in the world.  She had to fight to go to national Univ.  She brought lawsuit forcing Gov't to let her be 1st girl in Univ.  She went through Univ as only girl.  25 years of conflict destroyed the research and institutional aspects that fought hunger.  El Salvador and Liberia where two countries that have gotten to 100% of food in schools localy produced.  25 years of anything that walked was eaten and any plant product nothing saved for seed.  We are now rebuilding.  We are not aproaching hunger holisticly, we do not discuss nutrition.  Emphasis is more on suplements rather then getting it from the food.



Howarth Bouis – Director, HarvestPlus
Cereal production doubled in Green revolution while nutritious plant mater fell.  Price of fish and non-staple plant food doubled.  making harder to get nutrition.  80% of income goes to rice only 20% go to nutritious.  This is purely an economic issue.  As food prices in Nutritious food increase the % that go to this type decreases. 

Dyno Keatinge – Director-General, the World Vegetable Center
We don't have not elephants in the room but tyrannosaurus Rex.  Hunger and malnutrition.  1/5 of all diabetic are Indian, 1/10 of China is diabetic.  Type II diabetes is a dietary induced disease.  If we challenge malnutrition we have to get people to change their diets.  Need to consume more Vegis less grain.  It's not good enough to feed the world in 2015 if we are not nourishing it.  Not all Vegetables created equal.  No attention has been addressed by research on his nutirient leafy green Vegis.

Joseph Taets – Vice President, ADM Grain Group
Invest in Ag
We tranfere info to farmers small and lg

promoting Sustainable Ag
We have mult program. Doing it right in Brazil  more food better food in sustainable way.  Also partnering with industry]=try expert on eliminating post harvest loss

Leveraging our expertise.
In Haiti.  We had 800 tons of rice and we made that rice immediately available to Haiti.

Derek Yach – Senior Vice President, Global Health, PepsiCo
We cannot look at hunger without looking at the health and nutrition aspects.  The focus of pepsico will not just be on high end markets but will focus on small markets and smallholders and how do you improve the quality of the food supply.  How can we embed the knowledge we have into the developing markets. 

Jacqueline Morete, Farmer in Haiti.
 
 
I asked question on irradiation of food.  The rep from ADM and Pepsico could offer no work by their companies about this.  The Moderator reinforced that consumer is afraid they would glow in the dark(which is not true) and almost no-one is doing any work on this.
 
Pepsico will cut sugar in it's products by 25% and within two years remove all coloric drinks from schools.

World Food prize: Hon Rajiv Shah Head USAID: Hunger Fighters

Rajiv Shah
Hunger Fighters: Rajiv Shah

The Administrator of the USAID program.

Norman Borloug Commemorative research initiative.
   First effort to work on wheat rust UG 99. 80% of wheat in USA susceptible to this.  Generating rust resistant varieties. Convert CGAIR into several Mega programs.  Time to crisis to a few days. Work on the first 1000 days.  Move away from monetized assistance to extension aid.  Create markets for smallholder feed the world program.  $20M directly improve income of smallholders.  1/3 of Tanzanians below poverty, 1/3 of children show bodily stunting.  Joining with Gov't of Tanzania to three central regions where they have highest potential for growth.  Rather then have diluted country wide program.  we are focusing on small area that we can have success.  we are building roads, Japan building reservoirs and World Bank developing rice strains for region.  Our policy will lift 2M women out of poverty.

Feed the Future Private Investment Sector:  Facilitate small business in regions of need to work with those in need.

This is not just happening in Tanzania.  In Bangladesh, Ethiopia they have program to invest in sub region and small number of value change.  These programs will lift 1.6M children out of poverty.  This is in only four of the first twenty countries and in only sub regions.  Imagine when we can learn and replicate this we could have a foundation for a new sustainable Green revolution.