 When I think about the future, I think particularly in the food space, I would think about food systems that really provide more, like the vision is, I mean, it's on this sign behind me, good food for all. I mean, it's an equity question. It's a picture of the future with people being able to celebrate eating the right food. You know, how do we get there? I think it's really starting to kind of look at solving problems not one at a time, but in a combined way. Solving problems where you're looking at people on planet, not just one or the other. So I see too much of, oh, this is now climate friendly, but it's people bad, or it's people friendly and it's climate bad. Like we've got to have a human-centered approach that takes into account the environment and the earth and how we're working towards that. So I think, you know, the future is really how we can drive forward a food system that is providing the benefits to humanity and the planet so that it's really not damaging the planet anymore. And that actually starts to heal the planet in some way. Paul Nurenham is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas. Brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Paul heads up the Sustainable Development Goal SDG2 Advocacy Hub as director. An initiative bringing together NGOs, advocacy groups, civil society, the private sector, and UN agencies to coordinate global campaigning and advocacy to achieve SDG2 zero hunger. To this end, the SDG2 hub facilitates a network of 800 chefs from 80 countries to support chef action on the SDGs. Chefs are equipped with a simple set of actions called the chef's manifesto to drive progress on the global goals. Paul specializes in generating solutions to complex problems alongside communities around the world, working strategically along actors from all aspects of the food, agriculture, and nutrition industries. Paul seeks to generate change that will impact our food system and planet. Paul has developed a broad base of expertise in drawing connections from the culinary community to the sustainable development agenda. Paul has over 25 years of experience in and extensive knowledge of the not-for-profit sector, having worked in national and global roles with a focus on campaigning, youth mobilization, advocacy, marketing, and communications. Having worked with World Vision Australia, New Zealand, and the global headquarters for 15 years, his career has focused on the belief that it is possible to end global poverty. He has worked in communities throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and America to achieve planned objectives and generate positive, lasting, and sustainable change. I'm so lucky to have him here on the show today. Paul just recently accepted a new position. I believe it's Vice-Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Food Systems Summit. And as Vice-Chair for the Champions or the Heroes, what exactly is it? So it's for the Champions Network, which is a network working with different networks of networks. So really trying to help bring people in and engage them in the summit. So that's absolutely beautiful. And I'm so honored to be here just for our listeners. We've met our paths across a couple of times. The last time was at the Eat Forum in Stockholm, Sweden. We spoke a little bit. You were doing a bunch of things busier than ever, but you are a busy man and also a wonderful family man. You've got four children, teens, actually, three boys and a girl and a beautiful wife, and they're supportive of your mission. And you kind of live, breathe, and eat. All you do, that kind of is a holistic thing, leads right into my first question for you. And maybe if you don't mind, it'd be a little personal. We've seen some crazy times going on well over 12 months now around the world, from everything from the COVID to Black Lives Matters. But you've been doing this for a long time. You have a lot of experience around sustainability, advocacy, reducing poverty. Has any of that given you some resilience, or you as a, in your family as well, to weather these crazy times? And maybe you could tell us how it started out, what your first big experience was kind of in the COVID and how you weathered that crazy time. Yeah, no, thanks, Mark. And it's a pleasure to be with you. So yeah, no, we do have a pretty crazy family. We've got four kids. Our eldest is 19, youngest is 13. And so we've been, for the past 12 years, living in different parts of the world. So most recently, in the UK, living just outside of London. And I was going for a walk just about an hour ago with my wife as we do most afternoons. And I was having a chat with her. And we actually just talked about this one question. We said, we're so lucky at the moment because of the resilience that our kids had from all the moving, the different things that had happened, that they just really weathered the storm of lockdown in London, which was pretty hard. We were in the very beginnings of that through 2020. And they really weathered the storm and were able to adapt very quickly. And, and then we came back to Australia and there was quite a journey to get back to Australia because Australia is kind of closed down its borders, because it's very different situation to Europe with very low numbers of COVID now, after some mishaps and some really strict lockdowns. They've kind of, the state that I'm in has had no cases in the community for the last two weeks. And so they're very, it's a very different kind of environment. But we were just talking about how resilient the kids were. And I think when we reflect on why, I think there's a whole range of reasons. I think bringing up kids, it's always, there's lots of choices we make. And we've embraced sometimes the change that we see in the world. We've engaged with them and dialogue with them about what we see in the world. We've explored the world with them. We've been very lucky that my work has enabled that. But then we've also taken kids, like our kids have been to refugee camps. They've sat and seen climate change happening firsthand. They've been able to explore the history of different cultures. And I think through that, that change that happens, that ability, you build a resilience. And that resilience, it makes you look inward. And as you look inward, it helps you then to be able to be more adaptable. And so then as the things come our way, like COVID did, which none of us could have planned for, it builds in that ability for you to rediscover, what does this new normal look like? Who am I in this space? And so I think that's been pretty cool. But it is tough. It's tough. And it's how you lean into the toughness, how you embrace it, I think has a big impact. And so things like sustainability and the SDGs, the work that I've done, we've always tried to bring the kids along in that journey. And as a family, look at what some of the issues are, thinking about them, challenging them, getting them to go through that journey. It's just because we're working in development, doesn't mean they all just live and breathe it. So you're kind of there on a journey themselves, but you help them to think about why do we do things the way we do? Why do we make those choices? What are the other options? Why is that different? Why do we need to think about this? And so we found that pretty good. And so far, it's very hard with teenagers, there's lots of ups and downs, but things are going in the right direction. And we've got not necessarily the most stable in terms of they've lived in the one place all their lives. But the most rounded in terms of they've got these really life changing experiences and they're very resilient. And I think as we go into the future, resilience is a key thing, because the world's going to continue to change fast. And so how we can build resilient young adults is really critical for the future and for them to succeed and be able to solve some of the challenges we're going to face as a planet. Thank you so much for sharing that. That's absolutely beautiful. And I expect no less. I also have four adult children that kind of the opposite of you do. I have three girls and a boy. I actually have four grandchildren already. So my kids are older. And I also see that there's just the resilience they have, how they've made it through certain things. And not necessarily their dad being big on sustainability and the SDGs. Does that always mean that them as young adults or even in their teens that they lived and breathed it or did it? They, in some respects, still find their own path. But you create this lifestyle when you start, you view the world in a different way. And so the lifestyle that we've created, I think not only you, myself is just one where it's a lot easier or it's a lot different to operate with these models because you actually get resilience, get a little bit of help. It's a better business model to get you through life and hard times like this. It really leads nicely into my next question because you are working with people all over the world. You have in the past and currently now you're working with all different countries and advocates. You're working with the EAT Foundation out of Stockholm. You're working with the United Nations, both in Europe and the United States. You're just working with everyone, everywhere. And I think you have ties to the global citizen movement as well. And I've seen you post some things for them as well. I'm an advocate for global citizens. And Hugh Evans, I believe, he's from Australia as well. And so you have tons of ties and connections with that. Leads me to the question. Do you feel like you're a global citizen? And how would you feel about a world without nations, borders, divisions of humanity, one from another? What are your thoughts or your feelings? And the kind of the reason I lead you into that question is during this lockdown time, this craziness, food was a global citizen. Species, air, water, food was a global citizen. They continued even though we were in lockdown as human beings. And so it's given us this different lens on the world. And I'd just like to hear your thoughts and your feelings and kind of what that would mean for the future. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I know Hugh really well, he was a youth leader in a program that we ran back when he was 14 in Australia. And so I've known him for over 20 something years. And so it's been great to see the amazing work that global citizens been able to do and continue to continue to do and the impact there. And I think the answer, the way I would answer that question mark is probably in two ways. I see myself as a citizen of earth. So that is a global citizen. And I think it's all about perspective. So I see myself as a global citizen, but then I'd also see myself as an Australian. And I'd also see myself as a Melbourneian. And then I'd also see myself, you know, so you would go up and then you go down. And I think that the key is is how you identify is to do with perspective. And it's the issues you're facing. So when we look at global issues, we have to look at being a global citizen. And we have to think about the planet as our home. And there's this great advert that was all or like state and poster that was made by Oxfam, I think, and they said, you know, where's your home? And then it zooms out to the earth. And it says we're in this together kind of thing. And I think it's very easy to kind of look at certain issues and become very parochial about what's going on in your space where you are. And it's about proximity. So like when we lived in the UK, it was what was going on with the community that was around. And I think there's an importance of place where you are is part of who you should how you interact with the world. And so in the UK, there was lots of issues there with, you know, different, you know, issues around education, youth unemployment. So you engage with those issues. There's issues, the environmental issues were very different, different to say, when we lived in Rome or when we lived in Texas or we lived in New Zealand or Australia, very different experiences. And so in each of those communities, you have to bring the culture, the space, the place and look at the world through that. But what you don't do is leave everything that's come before your building layers upon your understanding. And I think this is really critical for us as we look at the world. And so I know in my early study in Australia, I did a lot of work on indigenous cultures and then also on world religion. And in looking at that, you think a lot about the way it's historical, it's looking back to understand what's happening in the present. And so you're constantly looking at what's the reality now? And what happened? And how was there a connection between the two? Where did things shift? What were the changes? How did people react? When you think about that history, which is we're all part of and tomorrow this will be part of, then you think about the space you're in, you think about that country you're in and the globe. So, you know, COVID and some of these things, these are things that cross borders. They're common to humanity. And so we have to deal with them in unified link arms as global citizens. But there's other things that we need to deal with as Australians or as Americans or as, you know, Brits or, you know, Kenyans tied to what the history is of that space and the reality of that space. And so I think this is where it's challenging. Like there's some stuff because of our connectivity, like what's going on in the US election feels really close to what's going on in my part of the world. And that's because there's a direct relationship. But it's also not my election, it's their election, but it's kind of our world. So there's like, you've got to see things on these layers. And I suppose I'm not necessarily articulating it as clearly as I could, but I definitely think we have to have these multiple views. And it's without those multiple views, we just would come up with responses which don't make sense. And they also don't join up. And so when we think about even the SDGs, the SDGs are different to the millennium development goals which came in the year 2000 to 2015, because they're interrelated, they're meant to be linked. Because what the understanding of development is, is that we need a linked up joined up and things are connected. If you push in this one part of the world, it pops out in another. So if we fix something in one part of the world, it'll pop out somewhere else. Our previous boss of mine used to use the analogy of those old water beds, you know, those water beds that had a big bladder. And he would always say, you know, and my parents had one when I was growing up and they loved it. I don't quite, it was like always a bit too. But you would jump, like you had nothing better than as kids to run and jump on the bed and then it would pop your sibling off the bed. And it's kind of like that. He talks about us living on this global water bed where you push in one part and it pops out somewhere else. And so this idea of like bushfires in Australia are a common occurrence. Well, the smoke pops out somewhere else and changes that environment, even though the fire is not there. It impacts then another place in terms of other things, do you know what I mean? Like so this shows this interconnectedness. And so I think as we think about the way we solve our problems, we also need to look at the way that the world is being built, the way that the world interacts as a global ecosystem or a series of ecosystems. And we need to look at how we fix bits, but then also how that interrelates with the other and the whole. Yeah, I really love that you've opened up so many things that we could go into some, some deep dives in there. One of them is really this one planet living type of a concept as well. Another one is that you brought up the fires right before the pandemic really kind of was even going strong. There was the bushfires and probably the severity that you guys have seen ever in a long, long time. But in that period of time, you guys emitted more greenhouse gas emissions from those fires during that period, then you guys do in a whole year worth of the missions. And it's not really talked about that much now, but it just doesn't affect where you're at. It affects the entire world. And that's kind of this, this thought of global citizenry as well, like the Bolsonaro or letting the Amazon rainforest burn. And that doesn't just affect Brazil, that affects the entire world. And so there's political decisions or things occurring in certain parts of the world that affect us all, but we don't have the voting decisions or rights or, or anything to kind of help, Hey, how can we all do this one planet living and be global citizens, yet stay very grounded in our local indigenous areas where we're living to apply some of the SDGs to apply some of these ways of living that benefit the whole world as as the larger organism that we're on. I always love to say, um, like Carl Sagan said, we are all star stuff. We're all stardust, you know, and we all come of, we could crawled out of this earth. And so we're all crew members are on this spaceship earth. And none of us are passengers, except for when we're babies or very elderly and cannot contribute. The other rabbit hole kind of that we go into is when you talk about the SDGs, you're focused with SDG to advocacy hub and that is really on SDG to, but you set it so quickly and the beginning are that they're all tied together as a system. It's impossible to work on one SDG and not touch on others. And I've said many times all 17 of the sustainable development goals are all tied to agriculture, seafood, food and beverages and Stockholm Resilience Center also, you know, Johan and that the Azo, the pyramid, the cake, wedding cake image of the SDGs addresses that as well. Does does that make it any more difficult for you now that you the hub is focusing in on SDG to or is that part of your message that this is our focus? I think we can solve a lot of problems, but we want you to know that it is really a complex system and all SDGs are tied together. What's that narrative and how do you present that to the world and kind of help them understand that complexity thinking or how we solve our global grand challenges? Yeah, look, I think this is the way I kind of approach a lot of this is these things all about tension points. And so it's it's it's working out where the tension points and understanding once you understand the tension points, it's almost like there was a there was a book by F Scott Peck and in the beginning, it says something like life is difficult. Life is truly difficult. And then it says that once you accept that life is difficult, it doesn't matter that it's difficult anymore, because you've accepted it. And it's almost like if you accept that things are going to be held in tension, that this is about one goal, and about 17 goals. And that's the tension point. It's like, yes, we have priorities, but we also know that it's integrated and you can't separate, but you also need to focus. How do you do that? Then it goes, okay, we kind of accept that that's the tension that we have to keep. So now, once we work that out, how do we play within that space to drive forward solutions? And and the other thing I suppose I bring when I think about this is how do you pivot? And pivoting is really critical to pivot around problems. And I find a lot of the time what happens is we we work through our careers and we specialize and the more you specialize, the higher you get in your given field. The challenge is you also become deeper in your given field. And so as you become deeper, you become more focused on specific interventions within that field that you have a deep knowledge and understanding of. And that can sometimes create blinkers to seeing other things. And it's it's purely, you know, to get to that point, you've got to go deep. And so there's this question of though, how do you also remain broad and seeing the world in openness and not getting sucked down that. And so it's and I think it's partly finding people that can do both that can operate in that specialized conversation around for us goal to what's going on in goal to let's think through the actual targets. Let's think how are we going forward? How does biodiversity connect with livelihoods? Let's understand and peel back all the layers of how it was created. Who's contributing? How do we accelerate? But then also go, you know what, we can't do any of this if we don't think about education, gender, cities, environment, climate, oceans, partnerships, like we don't work on poverty. If we don't work on all of them, what we're doing over here, it doesn't matter. So you kind of got to do it both and and so I think that's the key. And so I suppose when I hold that intention, I'm always saying our job in the SDG to advocacy hub is to make sure SDG to doesn't get forgotten in amongst the 17 goals and to drive from that starting point solutions through the 17 goals. But if you think about our chef's network, it's tied to all 17 goals, the UN food system summits looking at all the goals. So we're active in these platforms, which are looking at all the goals, as well as then also convening the people that are passionate about getting seen goal to not be forgotten. So it's kind of like a bit of both and holding that intention together to enable that. And I think then there's there's elements of how you develop narrative and use the language to enable that tension and also the bridging that goes on and the pivoting. Another that is so eloquent. It's also kind of there's some more things that opened up there and what you mentioned is that it's almost about embracing complexity. It's understanding the systems view approach to life. And in 2018, the United Nations, and matter of fact, all international organizations went away from the siloed linear approach to solving our global Grand Challenges and kind of into a dynamic systems model approach to solving our Grand Challenges that we realized that the siloed linear approach isn't solving these Grand Challenges that we really need to take a systemic view of how we pull the goals and everything together. Luckily, food for us both I think is I love food. I'm tied to it in so many ways. It's a cultural thing and it's a beautiful connector. But it is bigger and the silver bullet like Johann Dr. Johann Rockstrom or Professor Johann Rockstrom says at drawing down and solving our human suffering, our human health problems and our environmental problems bigger than addressing greenhouse gas emissions, coal, coal oil and gas industry, those things, the food, agriculture, seafood industry. So it's a number one way to have the biggest impact and draw down like Paul Hawkins say to solve some of these Grand Challenges. And so I really love that approach in the way you talk about those systems. Why does 2021 this year matter so much? Why wasn't it the decade of action 2020 and why isn't it 2020, 2030? What's so special about this year? Look, I think Mark the challenge is there's lots of years that have special significance and it really comes down to looking at where they're heading and what's come before. And I think 2021 is really unique. It's unique for a few reasons. One is obviously the Secretary General has convened this UN Food Systems Summit and this is really quite profound. It's not a food summit. It's a food system summit and it's looking at all of the SDGs and looking at how food systems can really help ignite and drive bold actions to deliver on all 17 goals. And so you're seeing this kind of real progress opportunity moment and these moments that are happening on the global agenda are opportunities to actually see steps forward, to see collaboration, cooperation, ideas come forward and commitment and energy be put behind them at the highest level. And the Secretary General Summit is a not, in my understanding, it's not a business as usual summit. It's like there's lots of things on the calendar that happen every year and they're really important. But this is like a summit to say we're not moving fast enough. Let's call a summit. I'm going to bring together the global leaders and I'm going to put energy into this to call for action, like what happened with the climate summits and other things. And so in 2021 this summit is going to happen. At the same time, because of COVID happening in 2020, there's a few things that have also moved to 2021. So we all know that things like the Japan Olympics moved and they moved to this year. Will they happen? We're not sure. That's the debate for the day. But something will happen, I'm sure. And alongside that, there's summits like the nutrition for growth, which was always tied to that, which is a nutrition pledging moment and opportunity to accelerate nutrition commitments. So that's now in 2021 rather than being in 2020. The World Expo, which was going to be in 2020, 2021 over that kind of summer. Well, it's not really summer. It's my summer, but not European summer, southern hemisphere summer over Christmas period. That's moved a year back. So that's another gathering over six months, really focused on the SDGs. And then you've got the climate cop. You've got the biodiversity cop. These are big global events and opportunities. And it comes down to sometimes who's hosting, how ambitious their agenda is. Do they lean into it? And so 2021 has become a key year. It's also a key year because obviously the world is just and it's still in a major pandemic. And that pandemic has disrupted on so many levels the world as we know it. And it's continuing to disrupt many parts. And so we're not by any means through it, but the light is starting to come at the end of what will the new world look like? How will we deal with this new thing called COVID-19 in the world as we emerge? What are we going to invest in? How do we move things forward? So I see 2021 as this key opportunity. The food system summit is one part. We also then have these other elements building in, which some are regular events and some are irregular events that are all in the same year. And so this creates an environment of potential change. Things like shifts in the US election, different political leaders, they change the dynamic. And so I see 2021 as super exciting. Super exciting for what it can, the discussions that can happen, the work that can be set that we can then use to hopefully see some shifts in the next 10 years in this decade towards 2030 to really reorientate some things in the right direction. Now, that's going to require bold action. It's going to require a whole range of political will and a lot of innovation and a lot of collaboration insights, all those kinds of things. But I think there's the potential there. And so I'm super excited about seeing how we can just push to just get that little bit further than we sometimes normally where we normally give up or we get to and see a few game-changing solutions emerge that really help us bring unusual actors together, think differently and be able to move forward. I think we're definitely a historical precedence and you said it so eloquently a couple of times in your description there. First and foremost, the sustainable development goals are the world's first ever global moonshot. They're a historical precedence that's never happened before like this in our Earth's history. Has 197 countries come together for the first time ever in history and agreed upon a roadmap of plan for our future to December 2030, a world that can possibly keep us at 1.5 degrees of warming, but also creates a sustainable infrastructure, a nice development to raise the bar globally for humanity to say we're never going to let humankind get below this level again on hunger and poverty and gender equality on and on. So that's a historical precedence that I think went just flew over many people's heads when I asked them what the SDGs are and they don't even know that they're living in a time of a historical precedence. The second is really if you think about it, we've been talking about food or I know for sure I have at the UN level at the World Economic Forum for quite some time and it's been like pulling teeth in some respects to really get a dedicated voice around food because food is the connector as a system to all other industries, all other areas of our world and it's another historical precedence that now we finally come out. We got a food system summit and we're really dedicating more. I've had food events at the UN before but now we're really realizing, raising that literacy, the awareness. This could be a real action game changer to see a lot of the problems we've had in the past start to change and so I love that we're united in this, that you talk about some of the great things that you're doing. Can you give us any more of an overview of the UN Food Systems Summit and the Champions Network that you're working on? You have some things coming up tomorrow as well that I'd love to hear about. Our listeners would love to hear about and also is it true? Is it a people's thing? Can anybody who's interested in food and in changing the food systems and helping necessarily, can they partake? Is there a spot for them at the have a seat at the table? Yeah, no absolutely Mark. So in terms of the summit, so the summit is being organized to try and really create on-ramps for engagement and so that's being breathed in through many different ways, through formal structures which have been set up to support that, through informal structures that have been brought to support that and then through the openness of those structures in terms of creating spaces and so what I suppose I can share. So the Secretary General appointed Agnes Calabata to be the special envoy and Agnes if you don't know Agnes's story and her background she's amazing comes from Rwanda the daughter of a farmer and if you've not heard her tell a bit of her story it's definitely worth looking online and trying to hear a little bit and she's actually worked as Minister of Agriculture in Rwanda and got the job done on many levels. So she's coming as a practitioner now leading Agra which is a big network working on greening Africa, working with different countries and so from my perspective I think a brilliant choice in terms of just a really solid choice. Then I think what they've done is they've built these different structures they've built action tracks and the action tracks are built to work on game-changing solutions within particular areas and there's five action tracks and so I'm involved in action track one and action track two on the leadership teams and each of those what's unique about these action tracks is they're all chaired by people who are not from the UN first time ever for a UN summit like this they're normally chaired by UN they are all supported by a UN agency five different agencies they all have a vice two vice chairs a vice chair that's a young person because they're really committed to engaging young people in not just a tokenistic way but in their decision-making and then also another vice chair that complements the chair so that they're kind of trying to get some some diversity of regions experience to ensure that between the three and that kind of core chairs and vice chairs there's some spread regions age backgrounds then they've built leadership teams and the leadership teams are to guide the process but they've created each of the leadership teams have done this slightly different because they're all it's not a UN uniform it's a got a little bit of independence there and each of those groups have created on-ramps for people to share and join so tomorrow you mentioned an event we're having a public forum for action track two and in that public forum where we're hoping there's over I don't know this morning there was about 700 people that had said that they were coming so far it'll probably get to about a thousand but that is designed particularly to share to hear from some of the people and on what the thinking is but then also to respond to the questions that are coming from people and you can't you know that many people you can't answer every question it's not like us having a good 90-minute conversation but you can at least air those questions you can you can attempt to try and answer them and what we're doing is also capturing them all so we can then you know get into the chat and get that so this is the second one and then out of each of these conversations are reports formed so that's happening in each of the action tracks they also have surveys to submit ideas and so from that perspective anyone can get involved anyone can put something forward they've also designed these things called the UN food system summit dialogues and these dialogues are a dialogue for people around food system issues where you have a diverse group of people that talk about the issues each of those dialogues create a report and that report goes into the summit the plan is each country in the world is being asked to host the national dialogue and so far I think 35 countries have committed and they're adding daily you know on top of that then there's going to be global dialogues which happen at the global level on different issues and then there's also they've created a toolkit for independent food system dialogues and so you can go and do training to be a curator or to be a moderator of a dialogue and so they're facilitating that in the the key languages of the UN so it's also open and lots of people I was on a training there was people there from all different parts of the world that were being trained and then those dialogues will also feed in so you know is it a people summit I go well so far we've got on ramps here we've got the ability for you to run your own thing or to get involved in something and that gets fed in and then the champions network is a network that's also trying to engage different networks and doing activities to build that in everyone can sign up to be a food system hero and that's to really say we care about this keep us in the loop share the information they've just created a food system community which is a platform that's being built where people can sign up and engage with one another share ideas see what's being talked about so all of these elements are there and I mean I have been working in this space for a long time do you always get right no is there always challenges of course does that mean you shouldn't try well of course not like we have to try and so I think this is a pretty good try there's all of these opportunities so for me when people say how do I get involved I go we'll get online and have a look if you're not online there'll probably be physical events held in different places or COVID friendly events that will be held and just find a way to get involved and get in there will everyone get a seat at the table in terms of invite well that's impractical like it's just impractical to have every single person who wants to show up be in you've got to always look at representation you've got to look at how do you have diversity what does that look like and so you just you have to come up with some structures around that with COVID it makes it even more challenging but there are groups looking at how do they get around that what does that look like you know all those kinds of things so I'm confident that the system is is set up well that the opportunity is there the intent is there from the leaders and I've looked them in the eye and I believe them when they're saying yeah we really want to hear from people and we want to deal with the hard questions like ask the hard questions show up let's let's debate let's arm wrestle let's let's work through these things that we disagree on because I think one of the challenges for the food system is that sometimes there's ideologies which separate us from communicating and so we have these kind of camps we get locked in where we don't listen to one another or we don't hear one another and we we just want to really defend our ground rather than build bridges and and absolutely we've got there's things that we need to be careful of in this food you know the food system is really important we've got to get it right and that means we've got to hear from everyone and that means we've got to come up with solutions that make sense and it's not going to be one size fits all for everyone everywhere because the food system is very different in different parts of the world and it needs to do different things but if we keep this idea of people and planet keep this idea of equity keep some principles in that conversation use the SDGs as a guide then I think we've got a good chance of at least being able to dialogue well being able to work towards solutions and be able to evaluate the last thing that the summit's really done is it's also said it wants to be a summit based on science and so they've built a science body that's representative of different scientific views around the world to really build evidence in and the actions that they put forward they really want to be able to put into that evidence and really rest it in solid agreed scientific evidence and so there's there's a really good process going on from that they don't want to recommend something that's maybe debatable but they want to recommend things that generally there's consensus on an agreement on and a good scientific line so I think that to me also is is really good I absolutely love that that's uh I mean it couldn't have described it better and it sounds like there's so many avenues if you want to participate if you want to jump in not only there are tools available but there's ways to make connections and and uh wherever you're at and whatever your level is to engage in one way or the other and that's really unusual at the the UN level at all to just kind of waltz in and and be able to have some kind of a voice or or to participate uh it's not usually that easy and so I'd like to see that trend and and and hear about it can you tell us about any anything's on the horizons as far as tools that are currently available and tools that would kind of maybe hopeful that will be coming that would just make our understanding on our literacy around food and around the future of food and also how it affects our world and climate and our health uh that are possibly coming out of this or other projects you're working on that are developing these as well yeah there's a number of different tools that are out there and I mean some of them are being still discussed so in the game changing solutions element where people are trying to at the moment each action track has to come up with a set of game changes to put forward and they've had public feed-in they've had their leadership groups and they're trying to now polish these things we think through is that game changing what would work what doesn't and so there's a whole process um so there may be some things in there that are being discussed but it's kind of probably a bit early to kind of share too much because they're still ideas that are kind of forming um I think there are some things that are out there so I think one of the challenges I've found is that sometimes the way we report on data around food systems is we don't often have the full picture and so we don't we can't then measure what's going on and we look at things in isolation from other things and so there's been a lot of work going on to try and bring together what are the interventions needed how do we measure the SDGs where are the ways in which we what are the things that we need to do to drive them and so there was a great report that came out last year called series 2030 and it was really looking at the interventions around particularly SDG 2.1, 2.3 and 4 and it was looking around small-holder farmers and what are the interventions and talks about what's where funding should go and how do you do that and I think that's pretty game-changing because that was a gap um there's also a a piece of work that's been done uh with um a number of people Jess Fanzo, Lawrence Haddad, John Hopkins has done quite a lot of the architecture around it called the food systems dashboard and this food systems dashboard is taking data from different places and really trying to show it in a food systems landscape and that they're continuing to evolve and and build into that and so I think that's really pretty game-changing um obviously then there's other reports that are coming out there's there's FAO and you know is bringing out reports all the time there's lots of work coming from there and I think all of those reports create data which enables decision making and then the the next thing is um there's a lot of work going on around uh rethinking the strategy around even our agricultural research and so I don't know how much you're aware but there's this whole network called the CGIR and it's a weird acronym in many ways but it's it's it's that's their name is CGIR it used to stand for something now it's their name um and CGIR is a network that is celebrating its 50th year this year of being a working on research that's being implemented around different prop ingredients different uh agricultural areas around the world and CGIR is really pivoting in this 50th year its strategy and just at the climate adaptation summit last week or the week before it launched a new strategy and it's really looking at how does that look at things like climate change how does that look at things like nutrition and gender so reorientating the agricultural focus the reason for the the innovation to drive forward new innovations and new investments over the next 10 years and so it's really looking at where it goes forward and trying to reorientate this science base for purpose because where we are at now is because of what was done 10 years ago you know like the science the agriculture what's going on in farms was what was being worked on and so science becomes something that's really critical so we've got data we've got science um there's a lot of work also around financing mechanisms on how do you work around finance and there's different funds looking at that so there's some really good work going on um really about connecting dots and bringing that together that's beautiful um around that question there there's kind of a deeper thing that that we run into when we've talked bottom up some of these reports from the FAO the World Food Prayer and CGI are from whoever eat lancet they're pretty hefty reports you know um 80 hundred pages 200 you know some of the thousand page reports or or that they do annually and complex hard to understand also a big read um are their advocates are their evangelists are their people disseminating that putting it in simple terms for those people in developing countries those farmers might even not be able to read to some respects or be struggling with the ability to go to school because they're working on the farm or creating food or doing certain things I just in my own uh in a developed country with when I speak to people about different things around the food systems I talk about a report that comes out um uh they're like we would never read it it's boring and the first couple pages it's too thick they get overwhelmed they get fearful um does does that fit more and illiteracy or is there is not a requirement for people to read those those forms how do we kind of pick people up where they're at and and bring them to this new understanding of food the SDGs where we're going with the summits without saying okay you've got to read these 10 different complex big reports you know are you kind of follow me where I'm going with this is how how do we get make this accessible for everybody instead of you gotta all of a sudden be a farmer or a scientist to read these reports or to apply them into your lives yeah look I mean the the whole it's a really good point so there's a couple of elements one is access to data and so there's a whole bunch of work there's a number of projects looking at data around the SDGs and the gaps and then looking at how is data being funded how do people prioritize it because there's still big gaps in decision making in different parts when we don't have records on certain things so on that side one of the things is to be literate in something you've got to have you know like we've got to have the data for this as we start then there's the question of how do we communicate that data and how do we get you know chunk it make it accessible get it out there and there's a lot of work going on from different groups on how to try and streamline that process how to kind of make that easier for people it still has more to be honest has a long way to go we do some of that work there's other groups that are doing that work for different advocates to try and make it more accessible you know you mentioned global citizen they they try and take the report and turn it you know so there's different groups that have audiences that are kind of trying to communicate it there's also a lot of networks that are like working with peasant farmers and others that will also take reports like that and try and translate them for their audience so there's a lot it's more audience driven and it's more like focused what we've been trying to do is is get the the headlines clearer and then make them more applicable to decision making and everyday conversations because once data becomes more every day then it becomes more actionable it becomes more political as well because you can then communicate with politicians who you know not always like able to have the depth of policy knowledge on everything but sometimes it's a political reality they're using to make a decision so we're trying to work on that and really help support some of that conversation and really bring them bring those reports into translation I think one of the things that I often talk about though is that a lot of the investments often done in the research and the writing of reports and then very little in the transmission of the messages and so a lot of the time you know all the energies put into the front end and they run out of money at the other end to communicate it and so what we always try and advocate for is to say we really think about the communication strategy think about because that's as important as the work it's as important to get that information to the people that can use it on in terms of access at the farmer level and stuff there is a lot going on now with simple phones blockchain elements where people are getting data on market prices things like that that kind of information is actually really powerful when it gets out into a farmer's hands to make decisions about selling today or tomorrow weather conditions you know all these kinds of elements and so there is work I'm talking with a there's a group that is working in India with dairy farmers for example that's created an app which works to give people access to veterinary advice via an app and that helps them with their cows to get basic interventions basic access to vet care that improves the health of the animals the yield and that then gives them more income less environmental impacts all these other issues and so just by having it on your phone it just changes and revolutionizes that so there are these kinds of projects and I think we're going to see them accelerate really fast I have two more kind of probably the hardest questions I have for you today the first one is the burning question WTF and it's absolutely not the swear word that we've probably been thinking and feeling with all the craziness going on in the world but it's the question what's the future and I'd really like to know you as a family man and even at your position what it is for you not so not representing Australia or or even as your vice chair position just what's your vision of the future yeah look I think mark I mean it's very easy to very quickly get quite disillusioned by some of the decisions being made and some of the way things are happening I personally am more of an optimist though I kind of ultimately believe people don't do things just to really they people even people that do bad things often do them because they have a good reason now it's not to excuse that but they've justified it in some way in their head that this equals justifies this and I don't think anyone really wants to ultimately destroy the earth hurt people and harm people they might want to hurt some people but not all people and so when I think about the future I think particularly in the food space I would think about food systems that really provide more like the vision is I mean it's on this sign behind me good food for all I mean it's an equity question it's a picture of the future with people being able to celebrate eating the right food you know how do we get there I think it's really starting to kind of look at solving problems not one at a time but in a combined way solving problems where you're looking at people on planet not just one or the other so I see too much of oh this is now climate friendly but it's people bad or it's people friendly and it's climate like we've got to have a human-centered approach that takes into account the environment and the earth and how we're working towards that so I think you know the future is really how we can drive forward a food system that is providing the benefits to humanity and the planet so that it's it's really not damaging the planet anymore and that actually starts to heal the planet in some way now that's going to take a huge amount of energy and effort to get there but I do think it's possible I also think there's something around equity and I keep reflecting at the moment as we see wealth continuing to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands I keep thinking how long can that go on how long does it go on before something happens and somehow there's some sort of redistribution and I don't know what that is you do see some philanthropists that give you hope that are giving away their fortunes and really reinvesting it back in humanity and is that right or is it wrong the way that that power we can talk about that that's a great philosophical conversation but it's not to me the question is in the in the environment in the world that we've created if that's the end result how then they give back I think is really key and I think that needs to be the question of is what are you giving back how are you redistributing and how are you leaving the world a better place than when you came into it and if everyone starts to look at that then I think we've got a bright future if people stop thinking about that then I think we're going to we're going to struggle so I believe you've already answered the second hardest question I have for you you know they're they're they're very similar and so I asked the the burning question I've asked it to thousands of people already and every answer is different I must tell you that there's only been about 10 where I'd say boy that's a really optimistic hopeful future kind of a roadmap or plan the SDGs truly give me this vision a roadmap a plan targets indicators actions things that we can do that that would make that the the goal the direction the path more likely to see that outcome be obtained the other question and I want to see if you can formulate it maybe you've already touched upon about formulated a little bit shorter but as one that I've also asked it's what does a world that works for everyone look like for you very different and I'd say that because we're because of where I was born because of the color of my skin because of the the education I just naturally got if it affords me a huge amount of privilege that in our unequal world if everyone had the similar access would shift my world and that's something that's quite confronting and challenging to think about but important to acknowledge and work to try and bring more equality and access because that's not right that the color our skin should determine or where we're born the opportunities that we have these last three questions I have for you are for my guest specifically there's something that will make their life better and power them in one way or the other if you if there was really one message that you could depart to my listeners as a sustainable takeaway that has the true power to change their life what would it be your message good question I would say really be reflective and try and learn learn and approach the world that we live in with as a world full of opportunity and learn how you can give back how you can do something to make the world a better place and that might be through changing the way you're eating engaging contributing to the place that you find yourself in each day what should young innovators or young people in your field be thinking about if they're looking for two ways to make a real impact so I think the key is really get experience that's broad you can't like it's good to dig deep but it's also to have that breath to really experience different sectors to get different exposure to different cultures to different ways of doing things so that you start to see that there's not one way to do things that you start to see there's lots of solutions that can can work and that we can discover them together and really drive that forward so I'd say breadth of experience is critical and the last question is really what have we not touched or addressed during our conversation that you absolutely want our listeners to know and maybe depart some optimism or where they should go and look to influence their life to make their life better to give them a tool or empowerment to change our situation so I would say one of the big things that often I think we we forget is that we think this complexity needs to be complicated so we go you know what the world's complex it's too hard I'll just it's too complicated well it's not it's not actually complicated to be part of the solution every single day you eat something some people eat three times a day some people eat once a day some people you know eat all through the day others eat not very much but we all have choices that we make around food and the choices that we make around food actually matter the kinds of things we choose to eat what that does to our body what that does to our planet who grew it where where it was delivered from who you eat it with and how you interact with people all of that matters and you can make choices that are part of helping make the world a better place for people and planet or a more challenging place and so I think you know as we make those choices no matter what issue you care about if you care about climate diversity educate like whatever area the way we eat can impact that and it can be part of a solution and so it's a very personal way that you can choose to make a difference and so I think don't make it complicated just pick something and start doing it it could be wasting less it could be eating more biodiversity like more different crops it could be having a plant-based meal if you eat a lot of animal-based proteins it could be if you don't eat any animal proteins it might be eating once a week you know finding a way to do that it might be giving someone a meal it might be sharing a meal with someone think about the way you interact with food and what that the consequences of that that's all I have for you Paul I really appreciate your time your your wonderful style and personality and what you're doing for the world I'm glad to be on this journey with you I hope our paths cross very soon live and if not I will be following you tomorrow and and many other days online towards this great year of food system summits and SDGs and and around food yeah thanks mark and I really appreciate being invited along and great to chat with you so thank you very much you to have a great day bye