- Chris, Federico, hi.
- Hi. Federico, to you first.
There's a lot of talk
about adaptation resilience at this COP.
What does that mean for food systems?
- What it means for food systems is obviously
having food on the table is very important.
We're seeing that the impacts of climate change
will affect those food systems
and the ability to produce enough for the world.
Concretely, we have what's called a triple gap.
It means that by 2030, we need to produce 17%
more diverse food on the same amount of available land
because we need to leave room for nature
with 21% less emissions.
So that is the challenge over the next six or seven years.
And so what that means is that we need to find the ability,
and it does exist, we need to actually increase
our existing ability for high yielding,
resilient and adaptive practices.
Practices that give more yield, are more diverse,
are more localized, are more fair to people
and produce local economies.
And that's what's going to be a buffer
for the inevitable climate change
that hopefully we will be able to keep
between only 1.5 average increase
with respect to pre-industrial levels.
- Chris, what are the key priorities
for Africa's food system given that the countries here
will be disproportionately affected by climate change?
- That's right.
I mean, I think as we model out to about
four degrees Celsius increase,
we'll see yields of crops like maize and wheat
go down by 50%.
We can't afford to do that
but we also shouldn't be relying on those types of crops.
There are great African crops.
There are millets and sorghum and teff
in places like Ethiopia,
which we need to make sure
that people are continuing to grow.
We need to have more research and development
into those seed systems
and into the distribution of those seeds
so that farmers are growing African foods in Africa.
So we're really hoping to see a lot more diversity
and a lot more scaling of the input companies
which are needed in order to make sure
that people can use these high yielding,
resilient and adaptive practices.
Integrated pest management solar powered irrigation,
and more organic soil nutrient companies
are gonna be critical to help Africa
really adjust to the reality of climate change.
- Chris, what are some of the interesting
food system transformation models that you've seen?
- Yeah, there's one that we're working on right now
with a host of other organizations
called the Fortified Whole Grain Alliance.
It's really taking a demand-led view, which is to say,
if we produce more fortified whole grain products
we can actually reduce the amount of food we require
by about 40% because you're keeping that grain intact
rather than removing parts of it
that go into the animal feed stream.
That's exciting because what we're doing is
using institutional procurement
through school feeding programs
to introduce, or maybe in some cases reintroduce these foods
to kids who then will have a taste for it
for the rest of their lives,
and they're far more nutrient dense.
And because they're fortified
they get rid of this problem of micronutrient deficiencies.
So I think we need a lot more models like that
that are balancing out both the demand side
of the food system as well as the supply side.
- Federico, anything interesting?
- Well, I will just add to this
that it is well known that in the whole world
most food we consume is produced by small scale farmers
anywhere between 60 to 80%, depending on the country.
On average, food and agriculture provide 1.3 billion jobs
for the landless and small scale farmers.
So there's also a huge component
of financial and economic resilience
and adaptation that will be fortified
by programs like Chris has just mentioned.
- Finally, what are you hoping to see from this COP?
- This COP is really an implementation COP.
I mean, this has been long and coming
so we all want to see stuff getting done.
And what that means is exactly as Chris has said
to be able to land this into complete projects,
projects that address many issues in one go.
So health, children's education, nutrition, et cetera.
So a lot of implementation and of course a lot of finance
for that implementation
and that finance needs to go to the global south
whose needs for adaptation are really significant.
- And just to add to that
I think what I'm encouraged by is the quantum of funding
that people are recognizing needs to be there
in order to achieve the ambition.
We need to be talking in billions
or even trillions in order to believe
that places like Africa are going to have enough investment
to truly transform their food system
to be more adaptive and resilient.
- And I'll leave you with one number.
Only 3% of public finance goes to food systems
whereas food systems are accountable for 33%
of greenhouse gas emissions.
So there's clearly a funding gap right there
that needs to be bridged for all these reasons and more.
- Federico, Chris, thanks so much.
(lighthearted music)