Commentary

This section contains commentary from Initiative cochairs and affiliated experts.

Spreading the Revolution: South-South Cooperation at Work
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, August 20, 2010

Brazil has become a major force on world agricultural markets, particularly in soybeans, and it has made advances in corralling domestic hunger. Brazil’s grain and cereal production has increased four-fold. The principal scientists and administrators in developing the Cerrado won the 2006 World Food Prize. Norman Borlaug, the Father of the original Green Revolution and founder of the prize, hailed the work of Embrapa as “one of the great achievements of agricultural science in the 20th century, which has transformed a wasteland into one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. Can Brazil do the same for Africa in the 21st century?


Safe Farming
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, August 6, 2010

One of the most debilitating consequences of the neglect of agriculture development over the past three decades is that African farmers, alone among farmers of the world, have been left to bear 100% of the risk of a very risky business. If a crop fails in the U.S. or in much of the rich world, someone – the government or an insurance company – writes a check. If a crop fails in Africa, people die.


At Harvest Time, Seeing is Believing
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, July 23, 2010

One Acre advisers teach the farmers how to space the maize during planting. Traditionally, they would grab a handful of seed and just scatter it over the soil, rather than dropping it into holes of a certain depth. That haphazard manner of planting would lead to overcrowding and weaker, smaller stalks. The farmers learn how to apply fertilizer before and after planting, rather than casually throwing it atop to the seeds, which damages the young sprouts.


Taking it to (and from) the Farmers
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, July 15, 2010

Meanwhile, in the U.S. capital, politicians were busy taking it away from the farmers. In crafting the fiscal year 2011 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs cut President Obama’s request to fund elements of his Feed the Future program. The markup includes $1 billion for agriculture and food security programs, $300 million less than the president’s request. The cuts also included $258 million from the request to fund the brand new global agriculture fund (known as the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, or GAFSP). The request was for $408 million for the fund; the markup was for just $150 million. The whittling was continuing in the Senate.


Keeping Up the Momentum
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, July 2, 2010

“We need to build warehouses! We need markets!” Agnes Kalibata, Rwanda’s determined minister of agriculture, carried this emphatic and urgent message to the Kirehe district in the eastern part of the country. The bountiful maize harvest had overwhelmed the district’s storage capacity; bags of maize are piled up in farmers’ houses, crowding kitchens and bedrooms. It was a good problem to have, so much food after not enough for so many years. But the minister was also seeing the dark side of the situation. Spot prices were falling below the costs of production. The potential of massive spoilage loomed. Farmers’ enthusiasm was waning. They needed markets for their produce, and, as the minister told buyers who had been called to a meeting with her, they needed them right now.


A Glimpse of Feeding the Future
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, June 24, 2010

Rwanda has emerged as the model country for the food security initiative because it was the first to challenge the G8 to make good on its pledges. The G8 said it was interested in country-led agriculture investment strategies, and Rwanda had a plan ready to go, with priorities such as irrigation, soil conservation, local seed research and extension services to advise farmers. The world needs to share Rwanda’s ambition and urgency. For Rwanda illustrates the consequences of our neglect of agriculture development over the past three decades, and the potential for a reversal – the goal of Feed the Future.


Leadership is Needed to Tackle Global Food Crisis
Catherine Bertini
Public Service, June 22, 2010

For how many years have people repeated the Chinese proverb 'give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime'? Yet how often has the world actually put this wisdom into practice?


The Final Frontier
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, June 11, 2010

Africa. It is agriculture’s final frontier. The continent that is home to many of the world’s hungry, is poised to make the greatest gains in food production. It is in that position because Africa’s agriculture development has been so badly neglected in recent decades. Innovations that have fueled farming booms elsewhere are still rare in Africa. The U.S. Department of Agriculture notes that sub-Saharan Africa as a whole uses less fertilizer than the single country of Bangladesh. Only a small percentage of corn grown on the continent comes from hybrid seeds – the conventionally bred seeds that have multiplied yields across the developed world. Much of the continent’s water resources – such as the great Blue Nile River in Ethiopia – remain underutilized as the vast majority of farms remain rain fed.


It's the Security
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, June 4, 2010

For anyone who doesn’t “get” the moral and economic imperative of ending hunger through agriculture development, here’s another motivating imperative: security, both domestic and global. The phrase “food security” and the mission of helping countries feed themselves are mentioned multiple times in the recently released National Security Strategy of the Obama administration. Its Feed the Future initiative is a key weapon in the deployment of American “soft power” around the world. And “development experts who can strengthen governance and support human dignity” are included with soldiers, diplomats, law enforcement officers and intelligence gatherers as defenders of the nation’s security.


She's the Boss
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, May 28, 2010

In presenting the guidelines to the Obama administration’s Feed the Future initiative, Shah effectively indicated that that little girl -- and millions of children like her, and their mothers and fathers -- was still the boss. Not the mighty president, nor the secretary of state, nor members of Congress. They all need to listen to what the Africans – particularly those Africans struggling to feed themselves – have to say about the priorities of agriculture development.


Breakthrough American Foreign Policy May Finally Give a Break to the World's Hungry
Dan Silverstein
Huffington Post, May 24, 2010

The United States government took a bold step forward last week in addressing the horrifying upward spiral in the number of people throughout the world who go hungry, and, because they are hungry, they suffer from stunted growth, find it difficult to learn, spend every day of their lives just trying to grow enough food to eat, and often die of starvation.


Feet to the Fire
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, May 21, 2010

Just back from Sudan, Rajiv Shah, USAID administrator, came to the Chicago Council’s Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security this morning with fresh evidence that food security is the key to national prosperity, regional stability and international peace. And he provided more implementation details of the roadmap to achieve that, the Obama administration’s Feed the Future program – ending hunger through agriculture development. The goal is to increase the incomes of 40 million people in 20 countries over 10 years, and to reach 25 million children with nutrition interventions that will prevent stunting in 10 million kids.


Starting Early
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, May 14, 2010

In far off places of the world, Action Against Hunger is on the front lines of the hunger battle, deploying innovations like Plumpy’nut, a peanut spread fortified with nutrients that often brings severely malnourished children back from the brink of starvation. In the U.S., the organization is working with about 100 schools this year spreading a different kind of elixir to more fortunate children – awareness. The educational program, now in its third year in this country, leads up to a Race Against Hunger. It is modeled on an initiative in France (where Action Against Hunger began) that has been running for 13 years now; some 750 French schools raised about Euros 2.2 million from the races last year. American schools, just starting out, raised $66,000.


Urgent Reminders from Niger
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, May 7, 2010

The looming famine in Niger is a gripping reminder of the urgency of the task at hand: ending hunger through agriculture development. Niger is one of the least developed countries in the world, and its impoverished agriculture sector is exhibit A. The country and various development agencies are struggling to hold back the relentless encroachment of the desert with simple, innovative efforts to re-green the Sahel, while also working to increase production and enhance the nutritional quality of staple foods grown in the few arable zones.


Fighting Hunger: Law of the Land
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, April 30, 2010

Embedding global food security as an official part of U.S. development policy to secure long-term support and funding is necessary because agriculture and food systems are built over time through investments across many sectors of a country’s economy. There are no quick fixes that can be covered by funding for a year or two. Once started, we need to follow through. Even after the current president and senators and members of Congress are no longer in office, their drive to end hunger through agriculture development must live on.


A Green-Letter Day
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, April 22, 2010

History was an important touchstone for much of the Earth Day clamor. “Investing in small farmers is an incredibly effective way to combat hunger and extreme poverty – history has proved it many times,” Bill Gates said at the fund launch. And, as the Green Revolution proved, what works best is when everyone works together, when governments and financial institutions and universities and philanthropies and corporations are supporting the same agriculture development goals, and when these efforts are adequately funded.


All Together Now
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, April 16, 2010

It’s all the same really, the clamor over hunger, climate change and environmental preservation. The common goal: improve food production and nutritional quality to feed the planet’s ever-expanding and more prosperous population while adapting to climate change and protecting delicate eco-systems. Yet the attention of policymakers is often divided as if these are unique problems with separate solutions.


Defusing Threats
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, April 9, 2010

So one mortal threat was diminished, but another – the one Dr. Borlaug had defused, only temporarily it turns out, back in the 1960s – still hangs over us more menacingly than ever. While the number of American and Russian nukes pointed at each other shrinks, the number of hungry in the world swells; while the nuclear weapons threaten to kill millions, hunger actively does. The widespread hunger that destabilizes societies and rocks our conscience remains a great threat to world peace today. As Borlaug often said, “You can’t build peace and democracy on an empty stomach.”


Out of the Spotlight
Dan Glickman
Politico, April 2, 2010

We are at a pivotal moment. The Obama administration and Congress have restored the world's faith in America as a moral leader. Now we must continue to earn that faith. Recent events have shown how quickly people can be uprooted. The earthquake in Haiti left more than 700,000 people homeless. A further 600,000 people have fled Port-au-Prince. USAID's foreign disaster assistance office has already spent on Haiti more than 40 percent of its annual budget. But the U.S. effort is far from complete. Millions of Haitians are still desperate for food, water, shelter and protection from abuse and exploitation.


The Hungry Can't Eat Words
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, April 2, 2010

A blunt reminder of the task at hand came from Europe this week, aimed at the powers-that-be in the Group of Eight leading industrial countries, also known as the G8: “Declarations, commitments and speeches don’t feed hungry people.” Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agriculture Development, was speaking to more than 1,000 researchers, policymakers, farmers, donors and humanitarians from around the world gathered in Montpellier, France. The participants in the Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development assembled to tell the G8 leaders – from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- that it was time to put their declarations, commitments and speeches about attacking hunger through agriculture development into action.


All Efforts Great and Small
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, March 26, 2010

After the passage of the health care bill, doing the big and historic is again possible in politics. On the international front, the equivalent is President Obama’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative, popularly known as Feeding the Future. Ending hunger through agriculture development, particularly in Africa, would be both very big and supremely historic.


Impatience
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, March 17, 2010

We have to get moving. With the government and philanthropists and corporations and grassroots organizations all bringing a focus on reducing hunger through agriculture development, we have arrived at a moment of great opportunity. Or, rather, potential opportunity. Congress needs to act, to support the lead of the administration. And we all need to crank up our impatience to bring the concerted action to the farms, particularly the small farms of Africa, that will generate the momentum and the optimism that this can be the singular achievement of our generation.


Marching Forth
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, March 4, 2010

A revolution, that’s what we’re talking about here. A grassroots revolution that will overturn the neglect of agriculture development and spark a new Green Revolution specifically tailored to the farming and nutritional needs of Africa and the environmental conditions of today.


Going Together
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, February 26, 2010

In the new initiative to end hunger through agriculture development, an old African proverb is lighting the way: If you want to go fast, go it alone. If you want to go far, go together. For the Obama administration, which is leading the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative, this means taking a “whole of government” approach, bringing the focus and resources of many agencies to the same task. For Africa, it means looking beyond national borders and thinking regionally.


Beyond the Emergency
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, February 18, 2010

Before the calamitous earthquake, Haiti was in the news for another tremor: the global food crisis of 2008. Shortages of rice and the resulting high prices had poor Haitians foraging through dumps and eating concoctions called “mud pies,” mixtures of grain and dirt. That misery prompted the masses to take to the streets in protest, which led to a government shake-up. Now, as emergency food aid rushes into the country to relieve the misery of people dislocated from the earthquake, it is time to also deal with Haiti’s chronic hunger and malnutrition.


Unity of Purpose
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, February 11, 2010

Making agriculture development a top priority of governments around the world has become a moral imperative with more than one billion people now going to bed hungry every night.  And it is a security imperative as population growth combined with rising prosperity and greater demand for food in countries once plagued by famine, like China and India, is driving projections that the world will need to double food production by 2050.


Can't Lead Abroad While Losing At Home
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, February 4, 2010

In 2003, while reporting in the famine fields of Africa, I met an American aid worker who suggested I expand my research on global hunger: “You should look into hunger in America, too,” she suggested. I moved back to the U.S. in 2005, based in Chicago for The Wall Street Journal.  Not far from our bureau was the headquarters of America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s food banking network.  It was one of my first reporting stops. Second Harvest (now called Feeding America) was finishing up a report on hunger in America.  Its findings, compiled from surveys with its member food banks, were shocking even for veterans of the domestic hunger battle: More than 25 million Americans were dependent on food banks and soup kitchens in 2005, including more than nine million children. Four years later, the depth of hunger in America has dramatically worsened, according to the newest survey.


A Hunger Czar Talks...And Talks
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, January 28, 2010

Beyond Ireland, few countries, if any, have a hunger envoy.  Then again, few countries can match Ireland’s relationship to hunger.  Stories of the Great Famine of the 19th century are passed down through most every family.  Humble and haunting monuments to starvation, death or emigration abound across the countryside.  When hunger calamities arise anywhere else in the world, like most recently in Haiti following the earthquake, calls for donations echo on every street corner.  The rattling of coins in the collection cans provides the rhythm for Saturday shoppers, who reach into their pockets with the generous refrain, “Ah, sure, we know what it was like to be poor and hungry.” The hunger envoy’s job is to make sure no one forgets.  And to remind everyone that there is plenty of work yet to be done to end the chronic hunger that burdens one billion people in the world today.  Every country should have a hunger envoy.


The key to Yemen and Afghanistan
Hendrik R. Woods
The Guardian, January 24, 2010

Reform of once-vibrant agricultural sectors in both Afghanistan and Yemen is critical to any international effort to ensure long-term stability and security in two of the world's least governable spaces.


From Words to Action: A Rwandan Beginning
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, January 20, 2010

They were listening in the hills of Rwanda a year ago when a new American president, this one with African lineage, took the oath of office.  Minutes into his inaugural address, Barack Obama stirred their hopes: “To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow, to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.” They were listening several months later, when the governments of the leading industrial countries – the G8 – pledged more than $20 billion in agriculture development aid.  And they were listening in September when the U.S. convened a special United Nations session to build support for a coordinated strategy that would reverse the decades of neglect of agriculture development in the poorest countries, particularly in Africa. They heard all the words and wondered if there would ever be any action behind them.


Why Not Hunger?
Roger Thurow
Global Food for Thought Blog, January 14, 2010

On the hunger front, the last decade was one of great outrage.  We shamefully brought hunger with us into the 21st Century after the Green Revolution was one of the great scientific achievements of the 20th Century.  And not only have we brought hunger into the new century and new millennium, we brought it with us in ever-increasing numbers.  The food crisis of 2008 exposed the decades-long negligence of agriculture development investment and the hypocrisy of policies like structural adjustment and farm subsidies that punished small farmers of the developing world, particularly in Africa.  By the end of the decade, the roll-call of the world’s chronically hungry had lengthened dramatically, soaring past one billion people.  That, the folks who do the counting tell us, is the highest absolute number in history. But the past decade also provided inspiration.  The progress on debt relief and AIDS, and the attention showered on climate change, should have us shouting: Why not hunger?


The Right Choice for USAID
Dan Glickman
Huffington Post, November 20, 2009

As co-chair, with Catherine Bertini, former head of the World Food Program, of the Chicago Council's Global Agricultural Development Leaders Group, I was, in essence, one of Raj's grantees working together to turn attention to the renewed need for U.S. leadership in long-term global agricultural development. Collaborating with the Gates Foundation, and Raj, on this project was a tremendous experience. It is not often that people understand the overarching policy issues of a subject, are acutely attune to the human impact of it, and also know the most granular details of it. Raj knows all three. He understands the policy debates around foreign assistance and development, but does also knows that to impact the lives of others you must know what they need and what they want-that we cannot drive development from thousands of miles away, but must do so on the ground in-country. And once in-country, he can point to a type of soil and tell you the seed that will maximize production.


Women Farmers in the Developing World
Dan Silverstein
Huffington Post, November 9, 2009

In 2008, impoverished women got a boost under the guidance of former Senior Fellow Catherine Bertini, who cautioned that women's needs must be factored into any grant proposal. So, they created a checklist against which to evaluate every agricultural development grant. Women are now front and center at The Gates Foundation. This is not rocket science. Bertini pointed out that it is as simple as scheduling radio programming that disseminates information on planting techniques. She suggested doing a survey before scheduling the program to determine what time of day most women can listen. Aid organizations that donate farm implements should make sure they accommodate the size, strength and conformation of women, instead of just sending tools that were made for men.


Agriculture Could Close Darfur's Gates of Hell
Rich Williamson
Des Moines Register, October 11, 2009

As stated in "Renewing American Leadership in the Fight Against Global Hunger and Poverty," the recent report from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs: "Hunger and poverty are humanitarian issues, but they can quickly become political flash points." Food shortages create insecurity that too often leads to violence. Each conflict is unique. Each has particular characteristics and causes. But there are common contributing factors that often are part of the mix such as a weak government with fading authority, corruption, marginalization, hunger and a failed economy, which, in most less-developed states, means a failure to achieve agricultural development.


Food for Thought
Per Pinstrup-Andersen
Public Service Review: International Development - Issue 15, September 23, 2009

Poverty and food insecurity are widespread and worsening in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. According to FAO, 265 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) now suffer from food insecurity. This is an increase of 100 million (or 60%) since 1991. The deterioration was particularly bad during the last three to four years, during which the number of undernourished increased by 25%. About 325 million fall below the poverty line of US$1/day and the number is increasing. In South Asia, poverty and hunger are also on the increase and there are now more than half a billion poor people in that region.


Saving A Billion People from Starvation
Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman
Huffington Post, September 18, 2009

No American ever embraced the power of science to do good more than Norman Borlaug. Father of the "Green Revolution" that transformed agriculture in India, Pakistan and Mexico, he was a compassionate realist convinced that there was no way to feed more than 6 billion people without the judicious use of high yielding varieties, agricultural chemicals, and biotechnology. He never waivered in those views even as they became less politically correct. America is working to rebuild its international image and has committed to dealing proactively with the problems associated with global food shortages and modernizing agricultural systems. Norm Borlaug's life is both a symbol of what can be done, and a reminder of the enormous problem of global poverty we still face. Why not finish his work? It is time we did. Who knows? Perhaps one day America will again be a hero to the world's poor.


The G-8 Announcement on Agricultural Development: Can it Save the World From Hunger?
Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman
Huffington Post, July 10, 2009

The new pledge to commit $20 billion to global agricultural development, announced at this week's G-8 summit, has the potential to dramatically improve the livelihoods of more than 700 million of the world's poor living in rural areas. If realized, this would be the most significant investment in the developing world's agricultural systems since the first Green Revolution in the 1960 and 70s, which saved millions of lives from hunger and created new agricultural infrastructure in parts of the world. Although this pledge should be commended, if the world's hungriest are to benefit, President Obama and leaders from the other G-8 nations will need to provide sustained leadership, funding over the long-term, and support for this effort, or it cannot succeed.


Making Farms Flourish
Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman
The Washington Times, May 23, 2009

Americans are generous in a crisis, both here and abroad. No nation is swifter to respond, no people are more giving than Americans when a tragedy strikes. Today, a silent tragedy is sweeping the global south. More than 1 billion people are hungry because of a shortage of food. Most of those people are small farmers and their families living in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This crisis, and it is a crisis, must be met, for it has profound social, economic and security implications for the United States and the rest of the world. The good news is the crisis can be abated. What is needed is leadership. And at a time when the world is expecting the United States to re-engage with the international community, a renewed commitment to alleviating hunger and poverty gives America the opportunity to reintroduce itself to the world as a force for positive change. President Obama has indicated his support for such an effort, for he pledged - at the recent meeting of the Group of 20 richest countries - to increase U.S. support toward agricultural development to $1 billion by 2010. It will take strong and sustained presidential and congressional leadership to turn the new president's words into actions and to create a long-term strategy for America to take the lead in reducing global hunger and poverty.


Farm Futures: Bringing Agriculture Back to U.S. Foreign Policy
Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2009

It is not easy for Americans to understand the starvation that afflicts much of the developing world. Families in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia spend up to 80 percent of their incomes on food; for the average U.S. household, that would mean an annual grocery bill of $40,000. Yes, there are hungry Americans in the millions, and the U.S. food-stamp program is operating at record levels. But hunger in the United States does not put tens of thousands of infants into hospitals and require them to be hooked up to feeding tubes. Nor does it lead to stunting, wasting, and debilitating forms of malnutrition, such as kwashiorkor and marasmus.

Yet even if Americans strain to comprehend the depth of hunger that plagues much of Africa and Asia, they do care about it. They know that chronic hunger among Afghans, Congolese, or North Koreans can pose a threat to their national security. Surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center have consistently revealed that Americans want to make ending hunger and poverty a priority for U.S. foreign policy. A recent survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs showed that the American public feels aid to poor farmers overseas should play a more prominent role than any other form of U.S. development assistance.


Responding to the Global Food Crisis
Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Joachim von Braun, and Peter McPherson
Roll Call, April 10, 2009

The Obama administration's commitment to strengthen the American support to fight poverty and hunger could not have come at a more opportune time. Every year, about 5 million children die of hunger and nutrition-related causes - that's about 10 children, every minute of every day. This tragedy is worsened by the global food crisis reverberating throughout the world, with low-income people experiencing severe hardships. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the large increase in food prices during 2007 and the first half of 2008 added more than 100 million people to the 850 million already unable to afford this precious commodity. The current financial crisis will only further exacerbate this problem. The food and financial crises are a wake-up call to governments and development agencies, which have all but ignored investing more in the food and agricultural sectors of developing countries. For millions of hungry people, time is running out. The lesson for developing countries is clear: Ignore rural and agricultural development at your own peril.


The Real Hunger Crisis
Robert Paarlberg
Foreign Policy, April 8, 2009

When international food prices spiked a year ago, the World Bank announced that an additional 100 million people in the developing world would be pushed into poverty. Food prices have dropped at last -- down more than 40 percent from last year's peak. But now the World Bank has again upped its numbers, saying that 183 million poor are newly vulnerable to famine. Can rising prices and falling prices both cause more hunger? The short answer is, yes -- because prices are not the only factor at work. Rising food prices directly caused the initial jump in hunger, but today's added spike is caused by a global slowdown in income growth, which will worsen hunger even if food prices fall. The shocks will be felt widely, and already, worries of food insecurity and famine are creeping back to the forefront of international attention, even making it into a forthcoming G-8 policy brief.



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