It's a very very mad world

Mad world was a song written in 1982 by Tears for Fears and covered years later by Gary Jules for Donnie Darko. The lyrics go something like this:

All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces

Bright and early for their daily races, going nowhere, going nowhere

And their tears are filling up their glasses, no expression, no expression

Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow, no tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kinda sad

The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever hard

I find it hard to tell you, cause I find it hard to take

When people run in circles, it’s a very very mad world

Indeed, it is a very very mad world, and the United States is making it all the worse. What a time. What. A. Time. So much darkness. So much upheaval. So much unraveling. I wrote a couple of months ago that I had no strategy on how to move forward. It seems the U.S. doesn’t either. As Captain Willard (Sheen) said to Colonel Kurtz (Brando) in Apocalypse Now, “I don’t see any method at all, sir.”

The chaotic decisions being made in rapid-fire real-time will have massive ramifications on our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change and ensure food security. Disengaging and slashing the essential connectedness of the global food system by instituting tariffs, altering trade, and halting food assistance (and many essential medicines and care in low and middle-income countries), as well as divesting from climate change commitments will upend and rewrite world order and multi-lateral cooperation, putting the world on a perilous path. The U.S. is setting the stage for other countries to step in and up. Let’s hope whoever does leads with good intentions and puts the world in its right place. Let us hope. We have to hope. 

The figure below from the Washington Post (I know, I know…old habits die hard) shows that $5 billion of U.S. foreign assistance is dedicated to emergency food assistance. One-third of the foreign aid budget goes to food assistance and global health. We also know (thanks to tracking by the Global Nutrition Report) that roughly half of the nutrition Official Development Assistance comes from the U.S. Halting this essential aid is devastating and tragic, particularly in the context of climate change. It isn’t just about emergencies; it is about the long arch of international development that has been slowly but surely working to end undernutrition, hunger, and infectious disease burden. It is about building farmer capacity, empowering women, and helping people adapt to climate change. It is about staving off emergencies with a long view of making the world safer, healthier, and more peaceful in the long term. It is incredible how so much decadal dedication and steadfast commitment can be dismantled in just one week in such an unstrategic way with no long view of the implications of such a decision.

Aren’t we being our best selves when we have our hands on each other’s backs, supporting our fellow global citizens through difficult periods? I guess the U.S. disagrees, and we will be left isolated, moving backward, without anyone to help us when we find ourselves alone and facing difficult times. These difficult times are not an “if” but “when.” I didn’t realize just how soon that “when” could actually be…

I will go out on a limb and a whim and insist that it isn’t a mad world after all. There is only one mad hatter tending to this goat rodeo. Yes, his methods, if you could call them that, are unsound. And that is truly unfortunate for everyone who shares this big and beautiful planet.

Building Stronger Food Systems in the Face of Global Shocks

I recently wrote a report for the Farm Journal Foundation on the current global food system crisis and the U.S.'s role in supporting small-scale producers by ramping up agricultural development assistance. A summary is below, and the full report can be found here.

Over the past few years, the world has faced a series of unprecedented shocks that have pushed farmers and our global food system to the breaking point. The COVID-19 pandemic, international and regional conflicts, including the war between Russia and Ukraine, and extreme weather events caused by climate change have come together to create a true “polycrisis” – significantly impacting food, fertilizer, feed, fuel, and finance available to farmers. These challenges have been extremely difficult in their own right, but worst still, they have left humanity vulnerable to any future “black swan” moments that could have severe and far-reaching consequences for global food supplies.

Recent shocks have led to high food prices and worsening hunger and malnutrition around the world. This polycrisis has disproportionately negatively impacted small-scale producers and people living in low-income, food-deficit countries who spend most of their incomes on food. Smallholders generally have low levels of agricultural productivity, high exposure to climate change and other threats, scarce assets, and poor access to information, technology, markets, and services – increasing their vulnerability to shocks.

Because Russia and Ukraine are major crop producers and fertilizer suppliers, a key input to help smallholder farmers increase their crop yields, the war between the two countries has significantly impacted global food and nutrition security. Trade bottlenecks, initially caused by the COVID-19 pandemic but compounded by the Russia-Ukraine war, have further exacerbated the crisis. Structural challenges to food systems in developing countries, including farmers’ lack of access to markets and finance, poor storage and transportation infrastructure, which contribute to food loss and waste, and persistent disempowerment of women in agriculture, mean that countless farmers and food producers were already teetering on the edge of survival; additional burdens stemming from the polycrisis have pushed many into disaster. Consumers around the world have also faced enormous pressure, as disrupted agricultural supplies have led to rising food prices and lower availability and affordability of nutritious foods. New research has shown that even modest increases in the prices of staple foods leads rapidly to negative nutrition impacts from deteriorating diet quality as low-income families shift away from more nutritious and expensive foods, including vegetables, fish, and eggs, in order to afford the increased costs of rice, wheat, maize, or other dietary staples.

A global map of the number of people with acute food insecurity, mid-2022

Through its whole-of-government Feed the Future initiative, the U.S. has an important role in enabling farmers and food systems in developing countries to withstand shocks better. Supporting global food and nutrition security is in America’s best interest both from an economic and national security standpoint. Studies show that U.S. investment in international agricultural development, research, and innovation benefits both developing countries and U.S. producers and consumers, far exceeding its costs.

Key Recommendations

Agricultural research and development (R&D) can help developing countries address their own unique challenges and shore up local food systems to withstand shocks better. Unfortunately, there have been significant decreases in inflation-adjusted U.S. and multilateral investment in food systems R&D to countries and universities in recent years, and important institutions, including CGIAR have seen fluctuations in research funding.

The U.S. government is uniquely positioned to lead investments in international agricultural research by virtue of its unparalleled capacity from the federal, university, private sectors and to generate benefits that would simultaneously help smallholder farm families around the world and American farmers and ranchers. The U.S. can strengthen its portfolio by providing additional resources to initiatives such as CGIAR, U.S. Feed the Future Innovation Labs, and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), and by partnering with institutions with long histories of designing and delivering research for development overseas, such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Within this context, the U.S. should consider targeting additional research funding toward the following areas to increase impact:

  1. Climate change adaptation and mitigation: The impact of climate change on agriculture is expected to intensify in coming years, and more investments are needed to improve smallholder resilience, productivity, and incomes. Areas that need increased research investment include drought-resistant crop varieties, better on-farm water management and improved irrigation, more precise fertilizer application, and additives to cattle feed to improve feed efficiency and/or reduce enteric methane emissions.

  2. Soil health and nutrient management: More research is needed into solutions that can reduce global dependence on Russian fertilizer. The U.S. should consider investing in R&D and partnering with the private sector to develop and scale up green fertilizer, biofertilizers, fertilizer alternatives, and innovations that boost fertilizer efficiency and nutrient uptake.

  3. Crop diversity and nutrition: Low productivity, high production risks, and insufficient diversification towards producing more nutritious foods are critical drivers of the elevated cost of healthy diets, especially in low-income countries. More research should focus on developing sustainable and scalable production methods for various crops, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, improved forages for climate-smart animal nutrition, and where appropriate, biofortification and fortification of crops and food. In addition, more research is needed to improve the affordability of animal-source foods, such as fish, eggs, and dairy, that would enhance both nutrition and livelihoods.

  4. Access to markets and finance, especially for women: Research could focus on how to address barriers to smallholders’ access to credit and market information, ways to develop new market linkages, innovative financing models, and partnerships with development banks to expand lending to farmers, and how to improve farmer organizations’ capacity to negotiate with buyers.

  5. Supply chain infrastructure: Inadequate food storage, poor road infrastructure, limited food preservation capacity, and the lack of physical access to food markets, especially for perishable foods, lead to significant food losses and inefficiencies along supply chains in many developing countries. Innovations focused on the infrastructure needs of small-scale producers and strategies developed to address those needs could help attract additional investment on-farm and across the entire food system.

  6. Local capacity building: Giving voice and agency to local producers allows for their participation and leadership in R&D funding and prioritization decisions. Without their engagement from the start, adoption of technologies and other R&D tools produced could be futile. It is also critical to ensure that R&D investments do not cause unintended negative consequences, burdens, or harms, particularly for women who already face significant hurdles.