The Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ new report, Growing Food for Growing Cities: Transforming Food Systems in an Urbanizing World, was released today at the Global Food Security Symposium 2016 and calls on the United States to lead global efforts to ensure that food systems can meet burgeoning urban demand. Watch the Symposium live today on our website.

Two-thirds of the world’s population – 6.3 billion people – will live in urban areas by 2050, creating a staggering demand for food generally and, specifically, more diverse foods. Delivering safe, nutritious and abundant food will be a challenge, but it also stands to be an enormous business opportunity for hundreds of millions small-scale farmers and small and medium entrepreneurs, with potential to lift millions of rural residents out of poverty and address a devastating lack of jobs for youth in many countries.

To supply more food to growing urban markets, supply chains must lengthen and reach further into remote production areas. This presents growth opportunities for others in the supply chain, such as wholesalers, transporters, processers and input suppliers, as well as larger companies interested in investing in emerging markets, including US firms.

The report recommends that the United States lead efforts to invest in policies, infrastructure, enterprises, trade capacity and research to transform agricultural supply chains in low-and-middle income countries.

Specifically, the report urges the US government and US businesses to:

• Bolster earnings and opportunities in low-and-middle income countries through infrastructure development, land tenure, food safety and gender-and-nutrition-sensitive agricultural policies;
• Support private-sector investment by US firms, particularly in partnership with local small-and-medium sized enterprises to foster employment and build rural economies;
• Improve regional trade capacity and integration; and
• Expand and strengthen investments in research on sustainable, efficient, safe food systems.
   

The findings and recommendations put forward in this report were developed by the project’s cochairs, Douglas Bereuter and Dan Glickman, with key thought leadership by the principal author Thomas Reardon, and in consultation with the principal author, the project’s advisory group, and numerous subject-matter experts from government, business, civil society, and academia. 

The Council’s annual Global Food Security Symposium draws more than 400 policymakers, corporate executives, scientists, and senior leaders from international and nongovernmental organizations to discuss the role of the agriculture and food sector in meeting urban food demand.

Speakers include:

• Sanjeev Asthana, Founder & Managing Partner of I-Farm Venture Advisors
• Tony Elumelu, Chairman, Heirs Holdings, and founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation
• Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
• Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island
• Rajiv Shah, Former Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development
• Ann M. Veneman, Former Executive Director, UN Children's Fund and Former United States Secretary of Agriculture
• Rodger Voorhies, Managing Director, Global Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
   

Symposium sponsors include Abbott at the lead level, Cargill at the supporting level and DuPont, Land O’Lakes, Inc. and RTI International at the next generation level.  Support for the Growing Food for Growing Cities study was provided by the Stuart Family Foundation. The report and symposium are also supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The report signatories include:

• Douglas Bereuter, President Emeritus, The Asia Foundation; Former Member, US House of Representatives
• Catherine Bertini, Distinguished Fellow, Global Food and Agriculture, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs; Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University
• Marshall M. Bouton, President Emeritus, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs
• Howard W. Buffett, Lecturer in International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
• John Carlin, Visiting Professor and Executive-in-Resident, Kansas State University; Former Governor, Kansas

• Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, Markets and Executive Director, the Markets Institute, World Wildlife Fund
• Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development, Imperial College London
• Gebisa Ejeta, Distinguished Professor of Plant Breeding & Genetics and International Agriculture; Executive Director, Center for Global Food Security Purdue University
• Cutberto Garza, University Professor, Boston College; Visiting Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Visiting Professor, George Washington University’s School of Public Health
• Dan Glickman, Former US Secretary of Agriculture; Former Member, US House of Representatives; Vice President, The Aspen Institute; Senior Fellow, The Bipartisan Policy Center
• Carl Hausmann, Former CEO, Bunge North America
• A.G. Kawamura, Cochair, Solutions from the Land Dialogue
• Mark E. Keenum, President, Mississippi State University
• Thomas R. Pickering, Vice Chairman, Hills and Company
• Steven Radelet, Donald F. McHenry Chair in Global Human Development and Director of the Global Human Development Program, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University                                                                                 
• Cynthia E. Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist, Columbia University
• Navyn Salem, Founder & CEO, Edesia/Global Nutrition Solutions
• Barbara A. Schaal, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor, Washington University in St. Louis
• Paul E. Schickler, President, DuPont Pioneer
• Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO and Head of Mission, Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network
• Robert L. Thompson, Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois
• Ann M. Veneman, Former Executive Director, UN Children’s Fund; Former Secretary, US Department of Agriculture
• Derek Yach, Chief Health Officer, The Vitality Group