 Hello. My name is Sean DeClean. I'm a member of the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum on whose behalf I would like to welcome all of those joining today's Food Systems Outlook for 2022, where we will address both the very real potential for a food crisis over the coming months in the face of volatile global shocks emerging out of conflicts such as the war in the Ukraine and elsewhere, combined with the growing impact that more frequent extreme weather-related events are having on the entire food system. Equally important, however, the panel will also address the role that food and land use systems are themselves having in significantly contributing to climate change and biodiversity loss, which together with the substantial impact that poor or inadequate diets are having on our wider health systems, means it's become more urgent than ever for countries to address this complex set of drivers holistically and not in silos to identify the opportunities for real and genuine change and to transition food systems to a net-zero nature-positive future, one that is more resilient to shocks but at the same time able to nourish and feed everyone in a way that is both healthier for people and the planet as a whole. This opening plenary forms part of a broader two-day Bold Actions for Food event that is currently underway with a series of workshops covering Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas, convening leaders from government, business, civil society, international organisations and academia who are driving multi-stakeholder action on accelerating innovative, inclusive and scale examples of food systems change in their respective countries and regions. It's therefore our distinct pleasure therefore to introduce Bronwyn Nielsen, founder of the Nielsen Media Network with over 20 years of broadcast leadership in Africa and globally who will moderate what should be a dynamic plenary panel. For which translation is available in both French and Spanish. Over to you, Bronwyn. Sean, thank you very much for the introduction and another warm welcome to the opening plenary of the Bold Actions for food meetings and of course we are looking at the food systems outlook for 2022. We're joined today by a distinguished panel of global leaders from public, private and social sectors working to improve global food systems and of course as Sean alluded to earlier, address pressing challenges facing both people and planet. Again, emphasising the fact that we have the enormity of a dual challenge that we're tackling right now. We have a new era or new area of constant volatility and risk associated with unprecedented climate and weather events threatening harvests and key bread baskets around the world such as Africa, the war in Europe, in the Ukraine, threatening food insecurity and food supply chains, a global pandemic, disruptions to livelihoods and supply chains as well. And of course the other part of the challenge is that we need to address enormously stressed food systems already in desperate need to transition to net zero. Nature positive, as Sean said earlier, that nourish all and importantly ladies and gentlemen, leave no one behind. Now we know the alarming stat that food systems account for one third of greenhouse gas emissions. A leading contributor to climate change and there is of course an enormous opportunity to make gains on climate goals and we could unlock significant gains to realise climate commitments on both mitigation and adaptation if we do it right. Rising food and energy prices are further exacerbating a system already failing and the number is staggering over 768 million people living in hunger worldwide with threats of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan and most recently the food insecurity effects from the war as I said earlier in Ukraine among others. In today's panel we'll try to unpack the complexity and address a few key dimensions. The global outlook for 2022 in so far as food systems are concerned. As I said rising food insecurity, market volatility is something we also need to take into consideration. Enabling countries to take an integrated transition across food, nature and health and then unlocking policy, innovation and finance levers to scale solutions. I'm joined as I said by a distinguished panel. We have Jürgens Foghule who is vice president of the Sustainable Development of the World Bank. We've got Rodrigo scientists who is member of the board of management and president of the science division of Bayer. Hanneke Faaba is the president of nutrition, Unilever and sandcast partner, acre venture partners. Thank you all for joining me and let's kick off this discussion. Jürgen if I can come to you and perhaps get your outlook given the short-term pressures we are facing as both Sean and I have highlighted in the context setting for this discussion balancing that alongside medium to long-term needs of resilience and adaptation of our food systems. Thanks very much Bronwyn. You were great to have the opportunity to discuss this really, really urgent and important issue with you and the panel and all of you on the call. You've already framed actually the session really quite well. As you said not only are we sick of COVID after two years strong focus on dealing with that emergency. We also have really stepped up on the climate agenda overall really strongly over the last two years but as if that wasn't enough now we're facing a war and all its implications and there are massive implications in terms of migration, in terms of economic fallout but of course also in terms of what does it mean in terms of food security for hundreds of millions of people. Prices are shooting up I think we've all been following this and you know maybe more than ever this just shows how how exposed our food systems are globally. Russia and Ukraine account for almost 30 percent of international sales of wheat they are very large they're actually the largest exporter Russia is the largest exporter of wheat not the largest producer that's China and India but they do not export wheat in any significant amounts and then plus per harvest supply chain issues global stocks are low very low even though they were rebuilt after the last food price crisis which was about 12 years ago they're now 31 percent below five-year average and you know also it's not just wheat it also impacts edible oils Ukraine is 50 percent of sunflower oil is exported by Ukraine, barley, corn, rapeseed also major implications on fertilizer production fertilizer prices so as I said the war is just an exacerbating what was already an important food crisis. Covid had already increased the number of food insecure to just about 800 million I think you mentioned this so we were already on a bad trend and this is just on top of we've seen the prices rise as you have said and as everybody is following 53 percent wheat price increase just over the last couple of months so clearly those countries that are major importers from Ukraine and Russia will feel the impact the most Egypt is the largest importer of wheat worldwide it imports about 70 percent of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia and that wheat accounts for 35 percent of daily calories per person but it's not only Ukraine it's not only Egypt most people will maybe not know that Indonesia is the second largest wheat importer from Russia so again there are thinking through what the implications are but other countries are similarly affected it's Georgia, Lebanon, Armenia, DRC, many African countries South Sudan and up to 90 percent of their imports come from Russia so there will be massive disruptions now while most countries are likely to see these most immediate effects the effects on the global food supply will be much greater and much longer lasting this is not just a short-term issue and so my first really important message to everyone on the call is how serious this will become to greatly depend on what kind of policies countries are going to put in place in the next few weeks and in particular on the policies that restrict trade what we cannot have is a repeat of what happened in 2008 there are more than 50 countries imposed export bans export restrictions try to control prices keep them artificially at the low level so distorting the flow distorting the markets that eventually was the reason that led to the Arab Spring as many of you will recall so again we have a confluence of factors that's not dissimilar it's not the same what happened 12 years ago but it's it's similar oil prices are high stocks are low etc etc so we don't want to go through the details but it is just coming this is one of the most urgent and most immediate things that everyone needs to communicate around and needs to have a conversation around because we are seeing already a number of countries doing the kinds of things that are absolutely detrimental to to lowering prices and helping those that are affected by it i don't want to single out too many but for instance Indonesia has already restricted the export of palm oil because palm oil is a substitute for sunflower oil and this could remove 100 000 tons of palm oil per month from world markets and of course that you know ratchets up the prices and it also distorts internally the situation but it's not only Indonesia there are a number of countries where we're seeing this right now so but as you said in your opening framing we should not just concentrate on the on the immediate problems but also address the longer term problems then the transformation of the food sector is really long overdue we're about 10 to 20 years behind other sectors that we need to transform to address what's a more and more urgent problem and that's the climate issue you mentioned the numbers agriculture forestry and land use account for between a quarter and a third of all greenhouse gas emissions and they do drive climate change and we are really decades behind compared to the energy sector in the energy sector everybody gets it right the future is renewable decarbonize get the net zero we know that we need to do the same in the food system but we're not spending the resources that we really need to break down the components of the food transformation how do we need to sequence this and how we can finance them we do know there is a lot of win-win out there where you really contain and I mean maintain productivity production but you can reduce the emissions very dramatically certainly in rice production also in beef production the technologies are out there but we need to well you're going to want to pick up I want to pick up on that point and and bring what we go in because you are saying absolutely the technology is there the advancement is there but we don't want to make these short-term knee-jerk reactions as you refer to the example of palm oil in Indonesia and that's going to destabilize the environment over the medium along the term again not to pick out any country as you say there are numerous examples of this but what do you what do you go if we are moving to having to make those decisions and looking at it from the private sector looking at regenerative agriculture can we make those decisions in the short term so that we are safeguarded in the longer term what we go thank you very much round it and my short answer is yes we can and but before I share a little bit more first my thoughts with the Ukrainian population there we have our colleagues working there and we are working daily to try to supply farmers seed and inputs for their season so really all our thoughts for for for the population that is there dealing with this war that is really something that we wouldn't expect in my generation is something that it's really bad to see that happening today so but let me go to your question we just just had we have today 5 000 farmers on a carbon program that we launched less than two years ago including 1000 farmers in India in rice or soybean and corn farmers in in the Americas the European coalition in also in Europe of course and my answer is that can we and I was talking with a farmer yesterday and the question was can we produce affordable health and safety food while we are sequestering carbon on the soil and help mitigate the climate change the answer is yes it's possible but require a massive work from the three sectors that you mentioned from the private sector the public sector was your dimension very well and also the civil society here we need to have a conjoint collaboration here three words come to my mind just to conclude this first speech here so first one is innovation I really hope that the entire society and the public sector understanding the importance of science innovation to help us to deal with that that's a extremely important one the second one is collaboration no one can achieve that isolated we need to collaborate we need to work together and the third one probably I'll emphasize the most action we need to move to action from all the different sectors right so that's why I'm proud to share about the 5000 carbon farmers that we mentioned or the smallholder initiative that we are working to reach a hundred million smallholders farmer on our plan working with different companies to do that but that's the three words that I'll leave here for all of us right we need to welcome and nurture innovation and science we need to collaborate further among the different sectors and we need to drive actions right now because as Jorgen said this is something that we need to do now otherwise we will face much more challenges in the future on a not resilient food system what we got I want to stay with you here on that word that you put into the fray action why is it there that we are 20 to 30 years behind when it comes to food systems and their impact on the broader climate environment yeah that's an interesting one because it's a complex scheme that we have here different from the oil and gas that Jorgen just mentioned it's easy first of all we need to include farmers on the equation here when I sit on this forum when I go globally and have those conversations farmers they are part of the solution and we need to bring them to the table and help them to transform the food system right so how can we the private sector have the programs that can help them to do that the public sector to really put the regulatory systems in place how we frame the political environment to support the farmers to move to that new system new regenerative system and also this civil society in understanding the extremely important role that the farmers will play in the future so my short answer for that one is that it's a complex what you're dealing with small farmers in India as I mentioned or a large farmer in Sehados Brazil and bringing them to the table helping them to transform the food system is really really really important Hanika from a Unilever perspective I happen to come across your purpose doing well by doing good and I thought that's an excellent framing for this very discussion and what you are driving from a Unilever perspective in terms of the supply chain and perhaps picking up on what Rodrigo has laid the groundwork there from from a private sector perspective how can we action more quickly I'm sure you get asked that question all the time yeah and and Rodrigo is is spot on we got to act it's the time to admire the problem is over um so at Unilever we believe you know we have a huge responsibility to help transform the food system and there's five actions that we're prioritizing that we think are really important in the system and of course we don't do this alone let me say that up front we do that you know as part of coalitions with many partners so to five or zero hunger regenerative agriculture plant-based food waste and nutrition so on zero hunger you know Juergen said it very well food security is so critical in the current context and we must just work our very very hardest to avoid this double catastrophe of war and hunger we're providing generous humanitarian aid and it is critical that we maintain the free flow of goods and agricultural materials around the world at this time and avoid hoarding Juergen said it very very well regenerative agriculture is also critical for our industry to get to net zero we're a huge greenhouse gas emitter as an industry and to get to net zero we got to act so just on our Knorr brand we're launching eight new large regenerative ag projects with farmers this year including in North America and Iowa soybeans and Arkansas and rice in Europe and in South America very very important that we act plant-based that's about the consumer and changing his or her diet to a bit less meat and a bit more plants will make a big impact for the planet and for net zero and so that's all about delicious products like magnum vegan ice cream which is absolutely gorgeous or the vegetarian butcher products food waste reduction is also with the consumer we guys know the world waste the third of all the food that we produce which is absolute crime and we're leveraging brands like Helmings especially Hanukkah yeah I just want to emphasize that point especially with 768 million people living in hunger and we just can't rationalize those two elements absolutely and that's why all these things are linked because we're also using way too much land and therefore emitting too much too many greenhouse gases to produce all that food that we don't end up consuming and so very very important and again we're using our brands to make that a little funner maybe saw our Helmings campaign on the Super Bowl make taste not waste their education is really really critical and finally nutrition of course we got to continue to make our products better for people with less salt more sugar fewer calories and more micro nutrients so that's the actions that we're taking and hopefully that will help change the system well that opens up beautifully to Sam who led the food and nutrition policy for the Obama administration Sam you tee up perfectly there by a Hanukkah who refers to nutrition refers to the consumer making better choices i.e. plant-based decisions come in with your thought leadership here well you know it's going to take all parts of the equation from way upstream and all the way down to the consumer to move this system in a direction that we need to go and you know think as everybody's saying we're fundamentally out of time like there's no more time to waste in fact we're way behind the eight ball and you're seeing moments like this like the Ukraine exacerbate you know what was already a pretty fragile situation we're now like second year where wheat crop is likely going to be 15 percent below even the United States and other regions across the world which makes us more vulnerable to these shocks and I think we're entering an age of volatility that is the norm we are now seeing a pretty like what will be our normal operating situation in various capacities around the world so of course you have to bring in the consumer if you think that food companies are going to actually make the change that we're talking about here they can't do it in isolation with what people are demanding and what they're eating and so I think we have to take a very holistic approach to this but there's a couple of big things we got to start to do seems to me one that has every single food company has to have a transparent accounting of their carbon footprint and start publishing their plan to reduce the footprint that is a baseline that only with that baseline can consumers start making more informed choices about whose products they should be buying what agricultural companies we should be supporting etc so that's sort of like a cornerstone of the whole thing I think when we have that then we can start to seriously understand the role that Food and Ag can play it's equestering massive amounts of carbon that for me is the gateway drug to transforming the system uh right now before we move off I know we we're gonna hear lots more from you but I think it's such an important point I want to put it to Rodrigo exactly that the transparent carbon footprint and the plans in terms of mitigating against that carbon footprint Sam I'm coming back to you but I want to hear from a private sector Rodrigo followed by Hanneke here Rodrigo from a bad perspective yeah so let me give a very concrete example I was visiting a farming to say how does region of Brazil that move to a regenerative farming right so suddenly he was doing soybean corn but no tillage crop crop crop rotation with that system it was an amazing result after two years he was producing more at the same time he was equestering two tons per hectare of carbon on that soil with a partnership with in brapa in Brazil that is the public sector public institute there so that's a great example so the challenge is that how can we have not 5 000 farmers like that but hundreds and hundreds of thousands doing that practices and that requires innovation collaboration also incentive from the government to help them achieve that that's that equation if you think about that farmer and the soil of that farmer the quality and the life of that so it's amazing Rodrigo also from a big company perspective though I mean that transparency of your own carbon footprint how much attention is paid to that line item from a better perspective well we made a we made a commitment for carbon neutral our mission is four million tons per year it's not that much and we are we are already working to be a carbon neutral very short for me that one is a important equation to be honest easy to address my key challenge is how you transform the entire sector the entire egg sector and that is a large scale that we were talking here so the company itself we made our commitments and we are moving a lot with renewable energy and other things that we are doing internally as a company but my key challenge that I have here today is how we transform how we help of course to transform the entire sector and millions of farmers globally absolutely and that very important point millions of farmers globally that are subsistence farming rather than farming commercially so race farming for the oil survival Hanukkah yeah I know I I'm so glad to hear Sam say this um so I couldn't agree more um companies need to have commitments to on how they're going to get to net zero um at Univer we've made a commitment to get to net zero by 2039 across our value chain net zero in our own operations is very simple we're pretty much there in our factories and our offices it's across the value chain that's very hard and which is why we're generative agriculture is so critical um but I would say to Sam's point also um we need brands so you know Univer sells many many different brands we need brands and individual products to be transparent on their carbon footprint so that's something that we're also working very hard on to get consumers to be able to see wow you know this bag of tea is actually a lot more carbon positive than that one um so Sam couldn't agree with you more and would love to connect to for any more thoughts you might have on that great Sam I'm coming back to you I just had to use that opportunity to bring private sector voice in and just double check everyone's beheading themselves yeah well so I think here's I mean here's that you could see how it starts to play out right from upstream where bear is operating down into how then Unilever can push those you know new uh ingredients that are being produced in a different way to the consumer and start actually giving real choice to consumers to actually unlock demand because particularly for younger generations we know this is what they're calling for what's the powerfully what what starts to come together when we when we do this and by the way it's very important to say it's not just scope one and scope two this has to be assessment for scope three emissions as well in the food system for most of the most companies 80 to 90 percent of their footprint is in scope three not in scope one or two so that's absolutely critical but fundamentally what we can start to do is to reshape the economy the food economy's relationship to natural ecosystems right now it's a very extractive one meaning we only pay for something that's taken we take the wood out we take the crop out but really these systems are providing us oxygen it's equestrian carbon holding biodiversity you know keeping water the water table is healthy and stable these are all these systems that right now farmers particularly and land land use management people who have crossed the board aren't being paid for and so that's why the the forest in in brazil keeps getting cut down because they're getting paid to plant soy even though the forest really is much more valuable to humanity as a force and so that's what we can start to do that's why I think the opportunity in carbon is so powerful now I would like to stop for a moment and say there's still problems and things and we're you know acre we're investing heavily in in this space from a venture standpoint because there's still problems around measurement we have to get much better at it there's still problems with double counting we have to have a system a global system to deal with double counting there's still technologies that can be brought to bear loan bios one that we put investing very excited about to significantly increase our farmers capacity through microbes in the soil sequester carbon and make it more permanent in the soil so there's lots of work to be done so it's imperfect and so environmentalists who still have some doubts and and and questions I think are very a fair game but we have an opportunity to actually pay farmers for the first time to do the right thing right now we've been begging them please we can you change your practices it doesn't hasn't made economic sense for that now we can pay them to do the right thing and if we've been pulled that through the supply chain where we start to incentivize both brands and producers to start sequestering carbon and start valuing the ecosystem that they should be protecting I think we have honestly the only chance that I've ever seen really to systemically transform the global agricultural system and start solving some of the biggest problems that we face and I hope in the moment of crisis like we're in right now that we don't take our eye off that broader work because we just simply can't afford but that's what's really possible and I think you know the pieces are just starting to come together but we have to dramatically invest more we have to get out of our comfort zone we have to set much more aggressive targets we're out of time it's the time has to be now so I've got eight more minutes for the panel and of course we also want to talk about COP 27 we want to talk about the global milestones that we've made in the space when it comes to to food systems so I'm going to bring back at Jurgen and let's do another round on the panel here in terms of Jurgen as we build to COP 27 how can we ensure that we are actually adding to those milestones that have already been achieved and that we're not just at the table having the same conversations over and over again i.e. when it came back to what Rio was saying he said that that third element is action I think everybody is there Jurgen to you but thanks Bronwyn you must allow me a couple of comments on what I've just heard which was brilliant from Sam and the colleagues from the private sector because a number of keywords were brought up but really not taken to the point where I think they need to be one was how do you support farmers to do the food production the right way that is the key right now they're not supported to do that the government support farmers to the tune of three quarters of a trillion dollars a year that's called agricultural subsidies and very little of that is actually targeted towards getting the outcomes that we've just discussed it is very easy to shift those to repurpose those subsidies to incentivize farmers rather than throwing fertilizer into the field where it's already too much or doing the wrong techniques to say you get your subsidy but you must do this and this will then lead to better nutritional outcomes will lead to better climate outcomes the techniques are known there are good examples we don't have time in this panel to discuss them but we need to massively scale this up which is one topic we need to discuss in COP 27 practically what is it that can be done and incentivize because we're talking a huge amount of public money which right now is not only wasted it is actually detrimental and that must change this has to be a key conversation going into COP 27 but just two examples one is the beef cattle it's not only you know yes cattle are a huge part of the problem but if they're produced right you can actually have a zero emission system that's possible we know it from Latin America there are ways of doing this the same with rice you can produce the same amount of rice but if you do it differently you don't want to go into the technical details you can you can cut the emissions in half and the farmer is no no loss it just needs to be done and managed well so I think these are hugely important points and I wanted to make one other point because I wrecked my head over this question why are we 20 years behind now for a long long long time and one thing I've come up with together with with with our team is we don't have a north star yet so to speak you know energy people understand they see a smokestack and they know that's bad and they know the north star is to get rid of carbon and fossil fuels and then we will be fine regardless whether it's better it's you know solar panel or windmill or whatever other technology will come out it's clear what it is that needs to go away and what needs to be done it's not clear in agriculture it is not clear to most people what is really wrong other than the food waste because when you look at a field it's green it's beautiful it produces and people don't see it they don't feel it that something is wrong with it so fundamental I think those are two topics I want to certainly take to COP 27 in terms of practical action the policy action to me is critical what I said earlier in the export but that's short-term the subsidy issue is absolutely crucial and essential and then pushing the technologies that are already out there companies are out there that have fantastic technology which is not being used because the farmer has no incentives to do it because the consumer doesn't pay more for a leader of milk if the cow that it's produced from has has a lower genetic a better genetic you know composition than the one that doesn't or doesn't use a supplement that reduces methane emissions by another 30 percent all this is out there but it's not being used and then of course there is but what we were saying there's still a bunch of stuff that we still need to invent so innovation is absolutely critical we need to continue to invest in innovation for a purpose not just innovation but for the purpose of getting making the food system transform and making it better and there it goes innovation for a purpose Hanika what will you be driving at COP 27 from a uni the perspective again to build on milestones that have already been achieved and try somehow to close that gap that we are 20 to 30 year behind the curve when it comes to transforming food systems yeah yeah so I think first of all we want to make sure food's on the agenda for these meetings so I'm at COP 26 in Scotland it wasn't actually even on the agenda which is horrific because we're such a huge emitting industry that has to change so let's make sure it's on the agenda and then show up obviously as individual companies as NGOs as governments and talk about the real issues I couldn't agree more with Jurgen you know repurposing agricultural subsidies it's critically important to get to regenerative agricultural practices to incentivize farmers to do the right thing they're they're business people they're not going to do it if it doesn't make money for them and if they get incentivized for actually doing the wrong thing um I don't agree with Jurgen that that's easy to do I think that you've been trying unsuccessfully the other big geographies haven't even tried yet so but I do agree it's a giant issue that needs to be resolved sorry on this one you know it's totally impossible to ask for reducing subsidies noble politically impossible it is possible to have a conversation as saying keep the same amount for political reasons but give it to the same farmer for political reasons but give it for a different incentive and Europe is not where it needs to be but it has improved in the last 30 years quite a bit the actual emissions from agriculture the the subsidy amount hasn't changed much in the last 30 years about 60 billion euros per year but the emissions have been reduced quite significantly because a third of that money is actually given to do things the right way and I've I've had success in other countries notably China and others having that same argument to change the way this is structured Brazil is by the way also has does a lot of good things in bit in this direction yeah I think it is all about repurposing the money that's flowing around I would have loved to see the EU do more so you know and go faster so I think your help there Jurgen will be really helpful Sam if you can weigh in before I introduce Don if you can come in here just give me a sense of COP 27 consumers incentives in terms of farmers where do you want to leave us you know you can't you can't leave any of them how none of this works unless all those systems come together I mean that's and we have to start understanding this in a holistic way you're gonna I will just say on on the policies after you know six years on the way out I will say things are night and day since when I was there it's not that many years ago the current administration the United States for example Secretary Vilsack is driving you know pretty rapid change across the agency there's a billion dollar carbon program being stood up right now and hopefully that a lot of those incentives start to flow through the the farm bill and other policy changes which I know the government's working on and you know when we were there climate change you said called the word climate change in agriculture it was like there was like stop there was no conversation to be had now you see environmental groups and some of the most conservative producer organizations working together to try to figure out how to bring the parties together to do something big and I think that those kind of coalitions have to be built they're missing the consumer right now they have to get in that conversation in terms of the you know those those companies that are representing how do we then drive that through the consumer lens and may consumers start demanding and paying companies to do the right thing and that has to go to COP I agree I've been screaming about you know COP 21 nothing the last COP nothing it's unbelievable considering that not only is it just such a big emitter but I I firmly believe that food and our culture is the only sector that in the next 10 years has the chance to mitigate the worst of climate change and buy us enough time for these other technologies that people are working on to actually get scale become cost affordable we don't we're not look other industries can reduce food and ag is the only one that is ready right now to actually take carbon out of the air and sequester nothing else can do that and so we don't galvanize this and put it at the top of the agenda in the next COP and the next COP and the next COP we're simply not going to come close to mitigating the worst of this so it's it's really night it's like we have to go flip this thing on its head get much more aggressive much more bold and asserting our role in this and start going to work to prove to the world that hey if we do this right we have the right incentive and the right investment we actually can lead the way in in solving the problem particularly over the short and middle term and then after that we're going to need more technologies to take us to to the to the finish line if we do this right we have the right incentives the right policies we can actually make a huge difference when it comes to the security of food systems and further their ability to be sustainable and to provide nutrition so thank you very much to Sam to Hanukkah and to Jurgen and Rodrigo for joining us for this robust debate I'm now very very pleased to ask Chu Don Yu director general food and agriculture organization of the United Nations to join us with his reflections from the panel and how of course FAO is addressing these issues so over to you thank you Brian and I'm listening to what are your discussion I'm so interested in learning from you Jurgen, our friend and also others you're really addressing issues I think for climate smart and culture climate resilient and culture whatever you call but we we see we do need to do more fit of the purpose not only for innovation fit of the purpose and also policy and look at that Jurgen you mentioned very rightly about the energy energy the build that they from the grass from the one factory one small sub sector up to the top leaders build the enabling policy to transform that sector so in a renewable and so on so and also by products by products not only you know general sense from a concept to concept that's what we have to learn from energy transformation agro food system transformation is more complicated of course because we are working with that different animals different plan and also a culture is more specific to the different environment and even one side of the mountain another side of mountain is different that's makes more complicated but there are a lot of politicians didn't understand what are the complex of agro food systems that's why you should have to be more clear more accessible to the politicians to get the most strong commitment second I think also science and scientists should be having more specific design the pragmatic approach to address the issues for rice for cattle you basically cattle I think I I closely working one commodity by commodity and that's they are still have a chance to be built up on the neutral carbon neutral or zero emission first tea and coffee if you already established some kind of a best practice for that and I think also we work with others on the cattle or milk I think also it's possible because if we reduce the energy consuming not only for the water consuming and also for the other energy consuming a feed and so on and then we will minimize the that's kind of an emission or energy consumption and last but not least that we have to look at the whole charm value get the balance and zero emission not only product side from production to the process to the supply chain and therefore the laws on the west as an honorable minister here so when I was in China also we always put the a lot of efforts on how to to reduce the food loss and waste I think so far globally it's got a consensus on how to address the issues related to the food loss and waste I hope and also who is a buyer created for the price of the agro food system transformation get a consumers get a family farmer and all this keep working together not only farmers to to take their responsibility also the consumers should be that's my idea so let's start to say I also supported calling recently the ukraine crisis we should also first day we should ask support a the UN secretary general to end the war restore peace and protect people people's lives in the ukraine crisis without this ceasefire or peace how can we move on the agro food system production supply from that region it's that's our pre-conditions peace and stability so I think also we have to work together from the public and private and the civil society together for agro food system transformation thank you so much Don Yu who's director general food and agriculture organization of the United Nations thank you for your reflections there sir it's now my honor to invite the honorable Tom J. Bolsak who is a secretary of agriculture of the United States for his closing remarks on the food systems outlook and the way forward thank you so much sir well thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you and I've been listening to a very robust conversation and discussion about a very incredibly important topic couldn't agree more with the folks who have suggested that cop future cop meetings have got to focus on food and agriculture as a critical component to reducing a greenhouse gas emissions and getting our arms around the climate challenge that we face in the U.S. we have very aggressive goals we want to get to net zero U.S. agriculture by 2050 we want to beat our NDA target by 2030 which requires a significant effort I'm going to just touch on a couple of things we're doing in the U.S. and also talk a little bit about the international situation Sam Cass mentioned our effort our billion dollar effort which we refer to as the partnership for climate smart commodities you mentioned getting consumers engaged in this well one way to get them engaged is by making sure they know when they go in a grocery store whether or not the products they are buying are in fact made from climate smart commodities that is to say commodities that were produced through climate smart agricultural practices and regenerative practices we've established a billion dollar effort to begin the process of putting together large-scale pilots and demonstration projects for the purpose of a rapid adoption by our farmers ranchers and producers of those climate smart practices and regenerative practices the development and use of accurate and verifiable measurement tools that will allow us to track greenhouse gas reductions and or carbon sequestration allow us to create verifiable results that will establish a standard by which we can then establish and market climate smart commodities and working with those consumer of those producer groups working with food processing companies to create a market opportunity we see this as a valued value added opportunity for producers we see it as an opportunity for producers as well to qualify for ecosystem markets which will create another revenue stream and we believe that the combination of resources from the government additional market opportunities and ecosystem markets will create the kind of incentive for rapid adoption by producers across the United States we also believe that as we create these climate smart commodities we also have to essentially complement our production agriculture system with a more robust commitment to local and regional food systems to be able to reduce the the mileage if you will that food travels from farm to fork that's one of the reasons why we put together a billion dollar commitment to expand processing capacity in the united states we want to create more competition for farmers but we also want to make sure that we are investing in a robust local and regional food system we learned during the pandemic that the current system while it is incredibly efficient it was not resilient and resiliency does involve providing resources to to create the kind of technical assistance that will allow small and mid-sized producers to understand where the market opportunities are developing food hubs an opportunity for smaller sized operations to basically aggregate their production to be able to market it more effectively to restaurants to grocery stores to schools to institutional purchasers now we're looking at ways in which we can use the procurement dollars of the federal government to encourage this as well just recently announcing over 600 million dollars of procurement opportunities through our temporary food assistance program for food banks and for schools to be able to purchase from local and regional distribution systems to create the muscle mass and memory if you will of how you can create and structure a more solid and robust local and regional food system renewable energy and fuel development also incredibly important especially since we are now challenging ourselves to create a low carbon aviation fuel the reality is it's going to be a while before we have hydrogen fueled airplanes that can travel one distances so in the meantime why not figure out a way in which we can significantly reduce the the greenhouse gas emissions from our transportation system by developing an aviation fuel 35 billion gallon opportunity we have an aviation grand challenge where the department of energy department of agriculture and the department of transportation are joining forces to create this this new industry this new opportunity we're excited about this we're excited about our farm to to school farm to restaurant farm to institutional purchaser network that we're creating as part of our our effort let me speak briefly about the commitment that we're making in terms of innovation it was mentioned during the course of your conversation of the important role in innovation is playing and needs to play we join forces with the United Arab Emirates the United States and asking the world to join us in partnership to promote and to expand a rapid adoption of innovation in this space we start off with a handful of countries and a few NGOs we now have over a hundred partners who are part of the aim for climate initiative that was launched by president biden during a summit meeting early in 2021 mentioned during the cop 26 meeting and it's going to be a focal point of the next two cop cop meetings we now have over a hundred partners we have sprint partners we have now nine sprint operations where several hundred million dollars is being committed by private sector folks to look at ways in which they can expand a significant adoption of climate smart practices IBM just recently announced a partnership a sprint partnership roughly ten million dollars where they're going to provide technical assistance and some of their some of their data processing to be able to enable farmers to do a better job of understanding in places like india and elsewhere how they could use climate smart practices to be more productive and also to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions an opportunity as well for us to continue to look for ways in which we can encourage investment in this space we started with a four billion dollar goal we reached that goal very quickly in terms of commitments we're now looking at trying to get by cop 27 an eight billion dollar commitment over the next several years the UAE is very interested in this because they import 80 percent of their food they want to make sure that that 80 percent is still available and that was standing the changing climate they also want to be more self-sufficient looking at creative and innovative ways to expand significantly agricultural production and we at USDA are also engaged in this by investing in everything from research to vertical vertical farming we're going to see I think a very extensive effort in urban farming and expanded opportunities there as well so there's an awful lot going on in this space and I think we I think there is a tipping point that we're reaching in terms of the recognition and acknowledgement of the need for agriculture to be a leading indicator in this effort to to reduce greenhouse gas emissions I agree with Sam Cass that I think agriculture does have the opportunity to make significant strides very early in this process maybe get there before construction maybe get there before transportation maybe get there before utility industries are able to get to their net zero future so we're excited we're we're really looking forward to awarding that's billion dollars in the spring to see what kind of large-scale projects and even small demonstration projects will be funded we anticipate and expect that there's going to be a quite a bit of competition for these resources and we think it will spill over into the Farm Bill debate of 2023 as we as we look to recraft agricultural policy in the U.S. Thank you so much to the Honorable Tom J. Vilsack he is a Secretary of Agriculture of the United States a very appropriate closing remarks and keeping up there so the energy of the panel certainly it's all about action action as we raise towards COP 27 building on the milestones that have already been achieved in 2022 again I'd just like to thank Chu Dong-Yu Director General Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and of course Hanukkah Farber from Unilever Sam Cass Acre Venture Partners Rodrigo Santos from Bayer Jürgen Bergogle who is the Vice President, Virgilé my apologies the Vice President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank thank you all for the robust discussion of course you can expect two more days of passionate engagement working to action to remedy the situation ensuring that short-term decisions emergency decisions don't derail medium and long-term impact of the food systems globally thank you so much for joining us here again I'd love to thank our audience for tuning in on the World Economic Forum broadcast platform as well as the social media platforms linked in Facebook and YouTube and as I said hoping to continue this robust debate over the next two days at bold actions for food thank you very much for joining us