I spent last week attending the Borlaug Dialogue, which represented the 40th anniversary of the World Food Prize. I hadn’t attended since 2019 but had been a regular prior to then. The audience has changed. It seemed smaller with less leadership from US universities and African countries, in particular. This may not be a trend but rather a reflection of this particular year. The conversation has changed, too, becoming a bit more sobering and less apolitical. Naively I want to think that the weaponization of food doesn’t really exist, yet one doesn’t have to search hard to find examples.
Given growing global food insecurity, including here in the U.S., I suspect conversations next year will convey even stronger urgency to address the situation. Our Cornerstone speaker, Dr. Johan Swinnen, will lay out some of the drivers for this urgency in his comments on November 10th. This might include NOAA’s prediction with over 80% certainty that this upcoming season’s El Nino will be record-breaking and global.
Much of the discussion sharpened the paradox that while we've focused on production efficiency and made strong advances, food insecurity continues to rise. The rationale is the result of not taking a systems approach and identifying the desired outcomes at the onset. Culture and infrastructure need to be considered. Greater yields only work if the increased production gets where it is needed and is accepted by those who need it. Cassava, also known as the yuca, as a cultural norm was an example. As part of the systems approach, everything on the farm must be considered but also everything off the farm, including post-harvest losses and access to capital. A key take home message was the need for holistic partnerships across the value chain, requiring a keen understanding of who needs to be involved and taking a broad view of the topic rather than deploying our reductionist expertise where we are quite comfortable. I was reminded of our faculty in AREC who work broadly across our departments and other disciplines to factor in responses that range from markets to behavior and more.
The point about identifying the outcomes at the onset was reinforced by remarks from the Princess of Liechtenstein. I learned that Liechtenstein is one of richest countries in the world, despite losing 80% of its assets to then Czechoslovakia during WWII. Today’s wealth is built from those 20% of assets remaining. Princess Tatjana Nora Maria of Liechtenstein shared that the monarchy takes a generational view that enables nimbleness and speed of responsiveness. She shared her philosophy that if you know where you want to be in 50 years (or even 5), you can make decisions now and said “innovation works best when long-term responsibility has the courage to act quickly”. We can learn from this.
There was reference to readings that were a long time ago for me, like Wendell Berry’s Unsettling of America and a poem by the same that suggests destruction by design with comparisons to the current discourse over AI. Though not an avid reader, I added a title to my list should I ever find myself in need of a book. I found the remarks by the author, World Food Prize Laureate, David Beckmann, particularly interesting.
This long post is a reflection of the value I find in participating in the annual Borlaug Dialogue. I hope others might consider attending in the future and would like to find resources to support our students in their participation. I think AGNR’s Jimmy Smith said it best – “it opens the aperture through which one sees the importance of their own work” and the value of taking a systems approach to problem solving.