0:02

This is an ABC Podcast.

0:18

With no foreign currency left for

0:20

imports, medicine, food,

0:23

and fuel are all about someone

0:24

else.

0:28

There are many lessons to be learned from the

0:30

current crisis in Sri Lanka. Lessons

0:33

about corruption, about what happens when

0:35

a democratic political system loses

0:37

its way, and there's also

0:39

a lesson about food security. about

0:42

what can go wrong when you upend a

0:44

system of agriculture without thinking

0:46

through the consequences. Anthony

0:48

Fanel here. This is Future ten.

0:51

The Sri Lankan government has now given

0:54

people one day off a week to grow

0:56

their own produce in preparation for

0:58

food running out. How can you

1:00

grow so much of food in small flats?

1:02

In twenty twenty

1:03

one, despite warnings from scientists,

1:06

the Sri Lankan government imposed a

1:08

sudden ban on the use and import

1:10

of synthetic fertilizers and

1:12

pesticides. Perhaps

1:14

well intentioned but the resulting collapse

1:16

in agricultural production soon

1:18

saw the nation begging for international

1:21

food aid.

1:22

So in general, this is probably

1:24

an example of why today

1:26

you need to look at the whole system

1:28

and not at part of

1:30

the system only. Monica Zurich

1:32

from the Environmental Change Institute at

1:34

Oxford University.

1:36

So if you're trying to change agriculture

1:38

to overall be more on the organic

1:40

side, for all kinds of good reasons, maybe

1:43

less environmentally impact, maybe

1:45

less impact on health of pharmas,

1:47

with pesticides, better soil health,

1:50

and so on and so forth. The issue

1:52

with organic agriculture is

1:54

that if you don't have people willing

1:56

to pay the premium that

1:58

most organic products

1:59

cost. It's actually really difficult

2:02

to establish a well functioning

2:04

new system around

2:06

organic products. Yeah. to

2:08

actually really achieve the change and

2:10

with benefits to the people that you want

2:13

to have benefits for, which are the farmers

2:15

and the consumers. at the end.

2:16

Issues

2:18

around food security, future

2:20

supply, food inequality, and

2:22

waste. That's our focus today.

2:26

Now doctor Zürich stresses the

2:28

importance of adopting a more holistic way

2:30

of understanding and appreciating what

2:32

we eat and how it's produced.

2:35

We tended to think of agriculture

2:38

on the one side and so

2:40

to say the consumer end on the other

2:42

side. And for a long time, the two

2:44

things were one and the same. So

2:46

for, let's say, the last almost

2:49

ten thousand people were eating

2:52

lot of the stuff that they were growing

2:53

themselves. That, of course, has changed

2:55

completely in modern

2:57

times. And now We

2:59

have a small number of producers in

3:01

most countries and a very

3:04

large number of consumers on the other

3:06

side and a lot of things in the

3:08

middle. So processes, transport,

3:11

delivery services, restaurants, catering

3:14

retailers. So it's become

3:16

this very complex, massive

3:18

set of actors that

3:21

what farmers produces crops into

3:23

what we eat as food and what

3:25

we have on our plates. And so

3:28

this is why over the last

3:30

twenty years, more and more people have started

3:32

to talk of this as the food system,

3:35

meaning that just changing

3:37

a part of the system. So for example,

3:39

changing how agriculture works or

3:41

changing what consumers would like to

3:43

have on their plate is actually

3:46

not gonna work in the system

3:48

when you change something on one side, you

3:50

change something somewhere else and often

3:52

you have unintended consequences and

3:55

and we don't really know how to manage

3:57

these unintended consequences. A good

3:59

example

3:59

is we have put a lot of

4:02

effort into research and increasing

4:04

yields over the years, but

4:06

that had a huge environmental footprint

4:09

in terms of carbon emissions, in terms

4:11

of water use, in terms of soil degradation,

4:13

that were unintended. This

4:15

is why we need different ways

4:18

to really look at

4:20

the whole farm to fork

4:22

system differently in terms of managing

4:24

it, and we need different tools, and we need

4:26

different policies

4:27

to work with what we called

4:29

food system today. And one way of taking

4:31

that more holistic approach would

4:33

be to establish an overarching plan,

4:36

which makes sense. but even

4:38

in an advanced food producing country

4:40

like Australia, that's easier

4:42

said than done. Australia has

4:44

been a major producer and exporter

4:46

of food for decades, but

4:49

it still doesn't have a dedicated national

4:51

food security policy. Researchers

4:54

and agricultural sociologists Dr.

4:56

Carol Richards. It's

4:58

a grave oversight because we've seen

5:00

year on year that rates of food insecurity

5:02

is rising The Australian

5:05

government have actually made a statement

5:07

on food security in Australia,

5:09

and they've said that there's basically

5:12

nothing to see here that Australia's perfect

5:14

food secure, but they're basing

5:16

that argument on the availability and

5:18

the amounts of food that's in the system.

5:20

We produce a lot of food. We

5:22

export food. we export

5:24

more food than we can possibly eat.

5:26

But that's not the issue of food security. That's

5:28

about the availability, but is it accessible

5:30

and to have access to food you really need

5:33

have money in your pocket. And that's where the

5:35

issue is. It's low income families.

5:37

People that don't have access to food because

5:39

they're running out of food and can't afford

5:41

to buy more. You know, we we

5:43

assume a right to food, like, we assume a right

5:45

to things like water and shelter and

5:47

housing. It's it's really bizarre

5:49

in a country like Australia, in a wealthy

5:52

nation, that the rights of food has been

5:54

eroded. So we need to reinstate that,

5:56

make sure that people have the rights of

5:58

food that they can access food and

6:00

that they can eat. So it's a matter

6:02

of, you know, rights and human

6:04

dignity, fairness. It's

6:06

just unthinkable that we would have

6:08

working adults even in Australia and

6:10

their children that having difficulty

6:12

in accessing the food that they need to

6:14

sustain a healthy and happy life. Did

6:16

we learn anything from the pandemic

6:18

and the supply chain issues that

6:20

accompanied it? I

6:22

think we did, you know, but what we saw is

6:24

panic buying. So one thing is,

6:26

you know, our concern about the food system and

6:28

probably a lack of trust in the food system.

6:30

So people are starting to think a little bit

6:32

more about food security and thinking of alternative

6:35

ways a provision as well. But I think

6:37

one very interesting thing that

6:39

came out of the pandemic is

6:41

the fact that the supermarkets

6:42

relaxed their private standards.

6:45

So

6:45

this is the cosmetic standards

6:47

that would dictate the

6:49

size of an apple, the circumference of an

6:51

apple down to a certain millimeters. That

6:54

was all relaxed, which got more food into

6:56

the shops to solve that issue of the

6:58

surge buying or the panic buying.

7:00

And we should be doing that all the time. We

7:02

be throwing good food away due to cosmetic

7:04

standards.

7:05

Because those cosmetic standards are

7:07

responsible for a lot of the food waste in a

7:09

country like Australia, rich country like Australia,

7:12

aren't

7:12

they? That's right. My colleagues and I over the years

7:14

have done lots of research with farmers,

7:16

producers, organizations. and

7:18

they told us that much of the food

7:20

are a large proportion of the food

7:22

that they produce doesn't ever leave the

7:24

farm. And there's nothing wrong with that

7:26

food. It's not blemish. It doesn't

7:29

have worms in it or anything like that you would

7:31

expect. It's just that it's not the

7:33

right size or shape. So it's about we're

7:35

talking about millimeters here, also

7:37

the slight wrong color. So it's perfectly

7:39

good food that's not making it into

7:41

the supermarket. and that that's a

7:43

travesty. We shouldn't be wasting food like

7:45

that on such a thing as cosmetics.

7:46

How do they justify that?

7:48

Well, don't know if they do justify it. I

7:50

think, you know, it's always been the elephant in

7:52

the room with the supermarkets. Well,

7:54

with CEO, for example, talks about

7:56

radical trans currency within that

7:58

organization, but I would challenge

8:00

them to publish their food

8:02

standards so that we can all see

8:05

or how and why food is being wasted.

8:07

There are various supermarket chains operating

8:10

in Australia, but there are two really

8:12

dominant ones, Kohl's and Woolworths. That's

8:14

right. Does that kind of domination of the

8:16

market? Does that really impact upon

8:19

things like food security and food policy?

8:21

That

8:21

has a massive impact So

8:23

what we're talking about here when we talk about

8:25

a supermarket duopoly is

8:27

market concentration where you've got two

8:29

major players and thousands of

8:31

people supplying to them. That means they

8:33

can play suppliers off against

8:35

each other, and that's what suppliers or

8:37

producers or farmers often report to

8:39

us privately. It's difficult to go out

8:41

in public and say this because you don't wanna bite the

8:43

hand that feeds as well. So with

8:45

that market concentration comes

8:47

power. and the power that the

8:49

supermarkets wield at the moment

8:51

is excessive because they

8:53

basically govern people out

8:55

side of their own organization in

8:58

relation to how they produce food. So

9:00

the shape and size of food again

9:02

down to the millimeters or the color or the shading

9:04

of the food, and that's what forces

9:07

farmers to throw a lot of that food

9:09

away. spoken in the past

9:11

to mango growers, and

9:13

they've said forty percent doesn't leave the

9:15

farm. So there would be differences

9:17

in each market segment

9:19

or food group depending on what's being

9:21

grown. It's a cost of doing business

9:23

that we just throw food away. And

9:25

forty

9:25

percent if you're talking tonnage, For

9:28

a major producer of food like Australia, that's

9:30

a that's an awful lot of food, isn't it?

9:32

It's

9:32

an awful lot of food. And the problem

9:34

with that is not only are we wasting

9:36

the sauces that go into that food and we're

9:38

affecting the the bottom line for farmers who

9:40

are, you know, quite often working on the

9:42

difficult conditions. That

9:44

rotting food is also contributing to

9:46

the production of methane, which is a really

9:48

potent greenhouse gas. So there's

9:50

no good argument for doing this at all.

9:52

It's wasteful in so many ways and

9:54

it's a negative effect on the

9:56

environment too.

9:57

Associate professor Carol Richards

10:00

from QUT. Queensons University

10:02

of Technology. In

10:04

recent years, there have been great stresses

10:06

on farming and farm production

10:08

associated with climate. Fires

10:10

have devastated large swathes

10:12

of farmlands in Australia, China,

10:16

Europe, North and South America.

10:18

In Pakistan, there's also been severe

10:20

flooding. And then, of course,

10:23

there's Ukraine.

10:27

The Russian

10:30

invasion and ongoing conflict has

10:32

severely affected both the supplies of

10:34

wheat and fertilizer. And

10:36

all of that says Peter Alexander

10:38

from the University of Edinburgh will

10:41

all of it inevitably means that

10:43

we'll continue to see a rise in the price

10:45

of food. but as with

10:47

everything associated with food security

10:49

and food inequality, it's all

10:51

much more complicated than it seems.

10:53

We've had a historical

10:56

fifty plus years where food is

10:58

becoming cheaper and cheaper relative

11:00

to incomes particularly, but then in

11:02

real terms as well, and perhaps this is the

11:04

end of that era of cheap food. And

11:06

that sounds like a bad thing and and

11:08

certainly for people who could remain

11:10

malnourished, you know, eight hundred million people

11:12

who were random nourish today,

11:14

probably more because of the recent

11:16

events. It's clearly clearly something we need to think

11:18

about. But in general, in

11:20

much of the world, Cost of food is

11:22

not representing the real true cost. You

11:24

know, it doesn't have the all the environmental

11:27

burdens associated with it. Greenhouse gas

11:29

emissions, the water use, and lost the biodiversity.

11:31

So

11:31

the end of cheap food is certainly

11:34

needs to be carefully managed,

11:36

but it doesn't necessarily bad

11:39

in itself. we're gonna to think

11:41

about changing our diets to be

11:43

more mindful of those two costs.

11:45

And obviously, if you're eating fruit

11:47

or veg, that's been air freighted

11:49

from the other side of the world. That doesn't make a lot of

11:51

sense in many ways, but that

11:53

doesn't mean I think there will be this sort of the

11:55

end of the global food system and the

11:57

trading food. Hopefully, it won't mean a

11:59

more balanced,

11:59

more sort of environmentally

12:01

aware to choices.

12:04

And this sort of potential

12:06

end of cheap food is maybe part of that, you

12:08

know, that sort of what, if you like,

12:10

forces us to value

12:12

the food on our plate or on our

12:14

cupboard rather more than we have

12:16

historically and to think about the source of

12:18

that food and the environmental implications

12:20

from its production. So I

12:22

think society, to some extent, has

12:24

been jolted into thinking about these

12:26

issues rather more than we have for

12:28

the previous decades. And and if you like

12:30

that's silver lining to some of the

12:32

situation that we have at the moment, that

12:34

we do have that sort of reflection

12:37

on those inputs and those

12:39

outcomes and putting a greater value

12:41

on on that food and changing our

12:43

behavior consequently to to take it

12:45

more into account. I think that could

12:47

be benefit if you want. And

12:48

then there's the issue of definition.

12:51

What do we actually

12:53

mean when we use the term food security

12:55

And indeed, what do we classify

12:57

as food?

12:58

So if we come back to the original

13:01

definition of security

13:03

that the food and agriculture

13:04

organization of the UN

13:07

has developed with a lot

13:09

of the different policymakers We

13:10

talk about food security

13:13

when we have sufficient,

13:16

nutritious,

13:17

safe food for people

13:19

and people have

13:20

access to this food. So this is a very

13:23

shortened

13:23

version of it all. Yeah? So if we

13:25

look at the number of hungry

13:27

people around the world, We have

13:29

made huge strides over

13:31

the last forty, fifty years and reducing

13:34

the number of hungry people

13:36

until about twenty fifteen. when

13:38

that trend of having less

13:40

hungry people around the world plateaued

13:42

or stagnated. And now since

13:44

around twenty fifteen, We

13:47

actually have more hungry people around the

13:49

world again. Around

13:50

eight hundred million people or

13:52

so are estimated to go

13:54

to bed hungry every Yeah. But

13:56

that's only the one point of food

13:58

security. So in that

13:59

sense, particularly over the last

14:02

few years, The whole concerns

14:04

about hunger have definitely come

14:06

back up on to the agenda of

14:08

policymakers. At the

14:10

same time, the definition of

14:12

food security also says

14:14

sufficient food. That means

14:16

also not too much. And we

14:18

have, in every country around the

14:20

world, a growing obesity crisis

14:23

and a growing crisis of what's

14:25

called hidden hunger. So

14:27

that means people are not getting the

14:29

right nutrients. They might get enough calories,

14:32

but they are not having the right nutrients

14:34

on their plate for a healthy

14:36

and productive life, so

14:38

that either they're over consuming,

14:40

meaning you're going towards obesity

14:42

with a lot of secondary effects

14:44

of diabetes, heart

14:46

disease, and so on and so forth. And as I say,

14:48

this is literally in almost every

14:50

country around the world, we see

14:52

an rising obesity trend. And we

14:54

also have a lot

14:56

more people around the world that

14:58

don't get the right nutrients, so they might not

15:00

be obese, but they might have other

15:03

deficiencies like vitamin a where then you

15:05

might have problems with vision,

15:07

you know, or zinc deficiencies where

15:09

immune system is not working properly. So

15:11

again, it's how do we measure

15:13

the success of the food system.

15:15

So from a

15:16

pure food security point of

15:19

view, No

15:19

country in the world

15:21

currently is food secure in the

15:23

strict sense. And we have

15:25

actually lost ground over

15:27

the last five

15:28

years with respect to

15:30

hunger and also obesity.

15:32

It's an interesting point, isn't it? That we

15:35

don't tend to think about We don't think

15:37

about the nutritionist of the

15:39

food that is available to us.

15:41

That's that's not part of the general

15:43

discourse of the public discussions that

15:44

we have. So

15:45

that also reflects very much

15:47

how the whole food

15:48

community and agriculture community has

15:51

moved over the last fifty years.

15:53

So traditionally, food

15:55

security and all the food security

15:57

discussions, particularly coming out of the second

15:59

world war, you know,

15:59

when the FAO was founded,

16:02

when a lot of the policies were set

16:04

in place, that we currently see around the

16:06

world to maintain food security.

16:08

It was all about providing

16:10

enough calories to people so

16:12

that they could actually survive.

16:14

So that was the whole hunger agenda that

16:16

we also have then seen translated

16:19

into a lot of development policies

16:21

for countries around the

16:23

world. That changed in the 1980s,

16:26

90s,

16:26

with a nutrition community

16:28

coming in and saying, you know,

16:30

hi, we might have enough calories

16:32

on people's plate, you know, if they have

16:34

access to it. But then the nutritionist

16:36

came basically and said, if we have

16:38

enough calories, that doesn't mean that we

16:40

have healthy people because

16:42

of that what's called hidden hunger, you

16:44

know, wrong nutrients

16:45

or too much of a good thing. So

16:47

we have to reshape what

16:50

we think of in terms of food

16:52

security. And

16:52

that debate has continued. That's

16:55

why the FAO definition, the

16:57

word nutritious food, was

16:59

included in the definition

17:01

in nineteen nineties two thousands

17:03

to ensure that it's not just enough

17:05

calories, but right nutrition.

17:07

that we are striving for. And

17:10

then, of course, with rising obesity

17:12

level, that word sufficient became

17:14

part of the definition as well

17:17

because as

17:17

I said, if you're having too much of a good thing,

17:19

you're also not healthy enough

17:21

to actually lead a productive life, which

17:23

is what at the end, to

17:25

say

17:25

the measure, of food security is

17:28

all about. Aside

17:34

from making the right choices about what's farmed

17:36

and what's eaten, there's also

17:38

transport and cooling requirements to

17:40

take into account when talking about

17:43

nutrition. In rich countries,

17:45

food is kept cool from the

17:47

fields right through to the kitchen,

17:49

and that network of refrigeration is

17:51

known as a cold chain. I

17:53

mean, the cold chain protects the quality of

17:56

the produce, so it's absolutely

17:59

essential. I mean, let's put

17:59

in context and twelve percent

18:02

of food globally is

18:04

lost primarily because of no

18:06

cold chain. In developing

18:09

countries, you know, you can see

18:11

sometimes as much as forty percent of

18:13

food is lost post harvest. And

18:15

for me, food saved is

18:17

as important as food produce. Toby

18:20

Peters, a professor in cold

18:22

economy and a cofounder of the African

18:24

Center of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling

18:27

and Cold Chain. The

18:28

initiative we launched and

18:31

developed back in twenty eighteen,

18:33

we then secured some twenty

18:35

million dollars of funding from the

18:37

UK go government in Rwanda and government

18:39

to develop this. And

18:41

what we've done is we've got a campus

18:44

in Kigali in Rwanda.

18:46

But what we're doing, the the problem with the coaching, if

18:48

I can just step back,

18:50

is that it's got lots

18:53

of pieces of equipment which all have to

18:55

work together seamlessly from farm

18:57

to market often, you

18:59

know, over long distances. So

19:01

that's that's the sort of challenge in and of

19:03

itself. But at the same time, you have to

19:05

have the skills, you have to have the

19:08

business model and we also have to make

19:10

sure we do it sustainably using

19:13

renewable energy and climate friendly

19:15

refrigerants. And so what

19:17

we're doing at aces, the

19:19

Africa center of excellence for December,

19:21

calling cold chain, is we're bringing

19:23

together into a first of a

19:25

kind center the training, the skills,

19:27

and the capacity building to

19:29

address all these aspects of

19:31

the cold chain. So we're

19:33

training farmers in in in why they should be

19:36

using code chain of how to deploy

19:38

it, what's the business model. We're

19:40

training the Refrigeration Engineers.

19:43

who can then install and maintain the

19:45

equipment. We're hoping

19:47

new technologies demonstrate and

19:49

trial their equipment. So it's an integrated

19:53

full system approach to the challenge

19:55

of sustainable clean culture.

19:57

Why was Rwanda chosen? Why that

19:59

particular country? Rwanda was

20:02

chosen because It's a good

20:04

country to work in. It's a manageable

20:06

size. The government was

20:08

engaged. And from there, we

20:10

can then spanned out to the rest of Africa. So we've

20:12

already started work on a

20:14

spoke in Kenya, and then we're

20:16

looking at other spokes throughout

20:18

Africa. and we've also

20:20

now started work on second centers

20:22

of excellence in India.

20:24

Given that, you know, in a country

20:27

like Rwanda, there are a great

20:29

number of small scale farmers.

20:31

You know, who are probably making not very much

20:33

from their produce. are we likely to

20:35

to see people not being able to

20:38

afford to take part in the cold chain

20:40

even if they're available? So that's the

20:42

whole point to basis is that one

20:44

of the big challenge to access to call

20:46

in cold chain is the financial

20:48

model with your earning, you know, you've

20:50

got subsistence farmers earning

20:52

you know, maybe a hundred dollars a month or less, and

20:54

they can't afford pieces of equipment

20:57

worth costing twenty thousand

20:59

dollars or more just

21:01

for one one element of this. So

21:03

what we're looking to do at aces

21:05

isn't simply train people in,

21:07

as I said, in how to select

21:09

right equipment or manage and install

21:11

it, but actually help them with

21:13

identifying what are the business models, how you

21:15

can serviceize the technology,

21:17

how you can bring communities together,

21:19

to give them access to it. Because the

21:21

big challenge we have is

21:23

how do I provide the resilient

21:26

cold chains to feed ten billion people

21:28

by two thousand and fifty,

21:31

recognizing, you know, that the example in Africa,

21:33

eighty percent of the food comes

21:35

from subsistence farmers and

21:37

achieve this without using diesel.

21:39

And the business model is a key

21:41

element of this. We

21:43

can't address the issues around

21:45

economic security of communities,

21:47

of access to say

21:49

food, malnutrition, all of these

21:52

issues. without a cold

21:54

chain, moving the food from

21:56

farm to market. It's interesting.

21:58

If you look at Rwanda, Rwanda to

22:00

meet its its targets, needs

22:02

to grow its food production.

22:04

I think it's fifteen

22:07

times. If you

22:09

have a well functioning resilient

22:11

cold chain, and you address the

22:13

issue of food loss in the

22:16

chain. you actually only have to grow the

22:18

volume of food nine times. So

22:20

it makes a material impact

22:23

on this overall issue, but it's

22:25

fundamental to society. Toby

22:27

Peters. And this is future tense.

22:29

New ideas, new approaches,

22:32

new technologies. I'm

22:34

Anthony Fanel.

22:38

Okay. We're just about

22:41

to commence session five

22:43

so if everyone can take

22:44

this. Whilst the proportion of hungry

22:46

people about one in nine has not

22:48

changed significantly since nineteen eighty seven

22:50

At a minimum, projects should aim to do no No

22:53

single food

22:54

or nutrient is a silver bullet. In

22:56

some

22:56

None of these challenges and things that any

22:59

government can solve on their own, they are gonna need

23:01

partnerships.

23:02

Forcers from

23:03

the annual conference of the Crawford

23:06

Fund for a food secure world

23:08

held recently in Cambra. After

23:10

discussion at that gathering were many

23:12

of the things we've been talking about

23:15

today, like ensuring appropriate

23:17

and realistic policy settings,

23:19

taking a holistic approach to the

23:21

entire food production and supply

23:23

chain, and getting the technology

23:25

right. And on that last

23:27

point about technology, the

23:29

conference heard some less than encouraging

23:32

news. Agriculture culture

23:34

is a high-tech industry in many parts

23:36

of the world, and food security has

23:38

benefited enormously from technological

23:41

advances. but according to Professor

23:43

Philip Party from the University of

23:45

Minnesota, the share of

23:47

r and d, that's research

23:49

and development, Well, the share of R

23:51

and D that's flowing to the

23:53

sector is patchy, to say the

23:55

least.

23:55

Definitely, the trends aren't in

23:57

many parts of the world are not heading in the

23:59

right

23:59

direction. In

24:00

Australia, they've sort of come back a bit

24:03

after tailoring off for a

24:05

few years. In the U. S. certainly the

24:07

public sector investments have been declining

24:09

quite dramatically. So in inflation

24:11

adjusted terms, the U. S.

24:13

is investing in university

24:15

research and US United States Department

24:17

of Agriculture, the USDA, at

24:19

levels now that were last seen

24:21

in the early nineteen

24:23

seventies. So there's been a big disinvestment in the U. S.

24:25

and it's true in other sort of richer countries

24:27

in the world that there's either been a flat lining

24:29

or a backing off of public investments.

24:32

but not in all parts of the globe in some of

24:34

the larger middle income countries

24:37

like China and India and

24:39

Brazil. There's been actually a doubling

24:41

down investments in food and agriculture.

24:43

And so the reasons I

24:45

think it complex. I mean, one of them is there's

24:47

just lots of other demands for

24:49

the attention of policy makers for

24:52

investments in scarce

24:54

public dollars. And in the R and D

24:56

space, there's been a big growth investments

24:58

in health R and D relative to

25:01

perhaps investments in food and agricultural R

25:03

and D and certainly growing

25:05

concerns about sustainability

25:07

and environmental aspects and

25:09

so a big increase in

25:11

research related to those series as

25:13

well. So I think

25:13

that the broader concern, Anthony,

25:16

is the general spatial

25:18

concentration of

25:19

food and agricultural R and D. So

25:21

Back

25:21

in nineteen eighty, just the

25:23

top ten countries alone accounted

25:26

for sixty five percent of the

25:28

entire world's spend and that's grown to

25:30

sixty eight percent of the entire

25:32

world's spend. So it's

25:33

quite a dramatic spatial concentration

25:37

If

25:37

you look at the the other end of the spectrum, the

25:39

the bottom fifty countries, particularly

25:42

many of those are in sub Saharan Africa,

25:44

which is Sub Saharan Africa is

25:46

the fastest growing region

25:48

in the world in terms of population.

25:50

They accounted for just zero point six

25:52

percent of the spend in nineteen

25:54

eighty. and that has fallen down to

25:56

zero point four percent So

25:57

what we see in these data is

25:59

a a big spatial concentration which

26:02

is getting more concentrated But

26:04

b, a growing global divide in

26:06

who does the agricultural R and D,

26:08

and so the world sort of bifurcating

26:10

into a set of scientific haves

26:12

versus a set of scientific have And

26:14

those countries that are investing

26:16

in research and development, how much sharing is

26:18

going on of that knowledge?

26:21

Good question. one

26:22

of my concerns is that there's a lot less sharing

26:24

going on now than there was in years

26:27

past. Partly,

26:27

that's because of the nature of the

26:30

country's doing the research, but I think there's

26:32

also another aspect of that is to who

26:34

does the research. And so what's

26:36

happened over the last three or

26:38

four decades is that the private

26:40

sector is

26:40

taking an increasing share of

26:42

that global agricultural R and

26:45

D total So

26:45

they now count around just over half

26:47

of all of the food and agricultural research

26:49

done in the world. And so that has

26:51

direct consequences not only on the types

26:53

of research done, but

26:55

also on aspects with respect to data privacy

26:57

and with respect to access

26:59

because of intellectual property and other concerns

27:01

around that research. Are there specific

27:04

areas of of agriculture that could

27:06

do with greater research and

27:08

development? Certainly, concern I have

27:10

is that as we've not only been

27:12

in certain parts of the world slowing down

27:14

or even cutting back on investments, we've actually

27:16

been shifting the nature of those

27:18

investments such that we've

27:19

actually been cutting back on productivity enhancing

27:22

research. The investments in R and D have

27:24

been instrumental in driving productivity growth

27:26

that is getting more output for the

27:28

same input or even reducing

27:31

the inputs in agriculture. And we sort

27:33

of reached the limits on on many the

27:35

natural inputs going into agriculture in terms

27:37

of this land that

27:38

can sustainably be used in

27:40

agricultural production around half the

27:42

world's land mass. is actually now in agriculture.

27:44

So we don't have much physical room to

27:47

grow. We're certainly pushing the

27:49

limits and going beyond the limits on

27:51

water use in agriculture. and so there's a lot concern

27:54

about sustainability issues, which

27:56

relate to sort of more an encompassing

27:58

view of agricultural productivity than we've taken

28:00

in the past. So in It's not

28:02

only the the labor and the capital

28:04

and the seeds and so forth that

28:06

are going to agriculture that are key inputs, but all

28:08

these natural inputs are certainly being pushed

28:10

to or past their limits. And so we need to

28:13

be doubling down on investments

28:15

to try and not just maintain

28:17

yields, but to increase yields and increased

28:19

productivity because we're gonna have another two

28:21

billion people on the planet by twenty fifty,

28:24

and that's a lot more mouths to feed. At the

28:26

same time, we've got lots of risk

28:28

emerging with respect to climate change and

28:30

climate and animal, pests and disease risk

28:32

and so forth. They're really starting to

28:34

undermine our existing productivity levels.

28:37

a

28:37

challenge in both sense of the word. Fill

28:39

a party there from the University of

28:42

Minnesota. We also heard today from

28:44

Toby Peters, Monica

28:46

Zurich, Peter Alexander and

28:48

Carol Richards. The producer for

28:50

this edition of future tense was Jennifer

28:53

Lake. I'm Anthony

28:55

Fanell.

28:56

You've been listening to

28:57

an ABC Podcast.

28:59

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