Responding to the Global Food Crisis

[VIDEO]
Food prices are soaring around the world. Over the past year in the United States, the consumer price index for food has marked the largest increase since 1979.
[Shopper]
"The food prices are up a lot. It's kind of crazy."
Japan is no exception, and companies are rushing to raise food prices. This year, the number of marked-up products has exceeded 10,000. This noodle restaurant was compelled to raise prices starting in August.
[Noodle restaurant staff]
"A small price hike will cause our customers to walk away. We're very sensitive about things like that."
On top of the climate change issue and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the military invasion of Ukraine has spurred the rise in food prices. Most severely affected are Middle Eastern and African countries which rely heavily on the import of wheat from Russia and Ukraine. How can the global community handle this critical situation?

[Yamamoto Miki / NHK WORLD-JAPAN News Anchor]
Welcome to GLOBAL AGENDA. I'm Yamamoto Miki. Without food, no one can survive. The right to food is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but the situation we're seeing today is far from food secure. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the food price index reached its highest level ever in March averaging 159.7 points. So, what's behind this food crisis, and how can we fix the food system so that everyone can get access to the food and nutrition they need? I'll be discussing this with our four distinguished guests today. First, from Addis Ababa, Dr. Million Belay is an expert on indigenous livelihoods and food sovereignty. He's a General Coordinator at Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, a broad coalition of civil society activists in Africa. Joining us from Washington DC is Dr. Joseph Glauber. He's an expert on food policy in the United States and is Senior Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. From Singapore, Dr. Zhang Hongzhou is a Research Fellow with the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. He's an expert on Chinese food policies. And from Tokyo, Ms. Ido Yuko is a Research Fellow at The Japan Institute of International Affairs. She specializes in food and politics in the Middle East and North Africa. So, thank you all very much for joining us today. First, I'd like to start off by quickly asking all of you this question. So, we've had food crises in the past, but how serious and different is this one? Dr. Belay first.

[Million Belay / General Coordinator, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)]
Thank you very much for having me. I think this is very different because this is sudden. You know, nobody has expected it to happen. And the whole world is also recovering from COVID, the impacts of COVID, and that exacerbated the problem. I think the rising price of fuel is also very much related to how people can access food and also inputs for agricultural purpose. So this shock has resulted also in an unprecedented spike in the price of food and fuel. So the suddenness of the crisis is what is different this time.

[YAMAMOTO]
Thank you. Dr. Glauber, how about you?

[Joseph Glauber / Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)]
Yeah, I think one thing is, this is the first time in 80 years or so that we've had an armed conflict affecting a global exporting hub which is the Black Sea region. And I echo the previous comment. It came at a time when markets were already very tight. It was an overnight shock. And unlike 80 years ago, the world is much more dependent on trade and I think that's been part of the vulnerability here which has longer run implications.

[YAMAMOTO]
Okay, thank you. And Dr. Hongzhou, what do you have to say to this?

[Zhang Hongzhou / Research Fellow, China Programme at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore]
I think at least in terms of the causes to this unprecedented global food crisis, there are several unique factors. In addition to the Russia-Ukraine war, which is the largest in Europe since the end of World War II, and then even predate that, you have the US-China trade war which has made an impact on global food supply as well. And then we have COVID which affected both the supply chain side as well as the access and affordability side especially among the poorest.

[YAMAMOTO]
And, Ms. Ido.

[Ido Yuko / Research Fellow, The Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA)]
Oh, yes. Thank you very much for having me today. I totally agree with the fellow speakers. This is unprecedented. And at the same time, we have actually watched, we have experienced through our history food insecurity and hunger and famines, but it is noteworthy that many countries in the Middle East and Africa are harshly damaged because these countries are depending on the wheat import basically from Ukraine and Russia via the Black Sea especially in the last decade. And I believe the most vulnerable people are refugees and internally displaced people in the region, and I'm very much worried about it.

[YAMAMOTO]
Okay, thank you all for setting the tone for this conversation. Now, in our first segment, we will focus on these factors contributing to the hike in global food prices. Here's a quick look at the overall picture.

[VIDEO]
These are the wheat fields of Ukraine, a country dubbed "the world's food storehouse." But the military conflict has been damaging fields and affecting the production of wheat. This farmer in eastern Ukraine says his farmland has been severely damaged.
[Ukrainian farmer]
"My entire farm produce, all my farmland, all the machinery, facilities and buildings are gone. I have lost everything in the past six months."
Ukraine's wheat production for the year 2022/23 is estimated to be nearly 40% less than last year's figure. But global food prices had started rising even before Ukraine was invaded. The rises began in mid-2020 as a result of disrupted distribution caused by the pandemic and the subsequent recovery in demand. Furthermore, the high temperatures and droughts occurring in North and South America since last year have affected grain production. Then, Russia's invasion of Ukraine heightened the rise in food prices. Although they have since come down to some extent, they are still high. At a news conference in July, David Beasley, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme expressed, a sense of crisis saying that the situation today is far more serious than food crises in the past.
[David Beasley / Executive Director, WFP]
"We are in an unprecedented crisis."
The latest rise in food prices is severely impacting countries in the Middle East and Africa in particular. Around 80% of Russian wheat and 60% of Ukrainian wheat is exported to these regions. Egypt is the biggest importer of wheat from the two countries. The price of "aish," the local bread that is a staple food, has soared. It is now 10 times more expensive than 10 years ago prompting dissatisfaction to mount.
[Man]
"You know how much pasta and tomato sauce and oil cost now, don't you? It's a big problem!"
[Aide to the Egyptian Minister of Supply and Internal Trade]
"If any change or shortage of the food supply happen, it will be a huge problem. Therefore, we focus on maintaining food prices to achieve food security and Egypt's national security."
In East Africa, which is also suffering the worst drought in 40 years, around 22 million people are now facing starvation.
[Woman]
"We used up all our farm food stock and our animals started dying, so we couldn't feed the children. Hunger forced us to flee."
Will the impact of soaring food prices continue?

[YAMAMOTO]
So, now we'd like to dig deeper into what's behind this food crisis. First, Dr. Glauber, the WFP is saying that the current food price crisis is worse than previous ones. You're an expert on price volatility, and in your view, why is that the case, and what are your concerns for the months ahead?

[GLAUBER]
We came into the... Even prior to the war, we were at the lowest stock levels for at least maize, wheat and soybeans that we had seen in 10 to 15 years. Ukraine and Russia are major, major suppliers to those markets and so the war disrupting that has caused prices to increase, not just for those countries that purchase wheat and other commodities from Ukraine, but globally. And so, prices were up everywhere. And I think that now, because of the tight stock situation, people are looking at each and every country to see how the crops are progressing. We've seen again weather shocks even this year since the invasion that have affected supplies. I think this is going to take a while to get back to normal price levels. And I think it's not going to happen overnight mainly because we still have a war going on that's affecting production in a very key exporting hub.

[YAMAMOTO]
I'd like to ask you about the situation in the United States. Do you think people will be able to get through this?

[GLAUBER]
This is the highest food inflation that the US has experienced since 1979. Unfortunately, the inflation also is affecting the macroeconomy, so it's not just food, it's also energy prices, it's also other things. But yes, this is, I won't say unprecedented because we have had certainly higher food inflation in the '70s, but, again, very, very high inflation. And I think most analysts like myself think that these high prices will remain certainly for the foreseeable future.

[YAMAMOTO]
Now, Ms. Ido, you've lived in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, places where food self-sufficiency is relatively low and which depend on food imports. You're watching the Middle East and North Africa very closely, and apparently, that region is severely affected by the situation in Ukraine. What is making it so serious, and what are the biggest worries?

[IDO]
This region had already been suffering from conflict and political instability as the video said. And in general, many of the countries in the region have not established sufficient so-called social safety net programs and systems except food and fuel subsidies that had been widely implemented to lower the prices. So if the global food and commodity prices further increase, it will be difficult for the governments in the region to manage the situation. Basically, I'm not against free trade, but at the same time, I believe low food self-sufficiency would jeopardize any national sovereignty especially at the time of crisis. Even if you have money, you can't buy food as you do in normal times. But currently, very limited numbers of countries such as the US, Canada, Russia, Ukraine and others are producing main grains, especially wheat and corn or maize. Countries such as Egypt have drought, and Turkey and Lebanon and others are depending on wheat from Ukraine and Russia, while Japan for example, is depending on the US and Canada for wheat and corn. The US is such a big agriculture producing country, but they also suffer from severe drought time to time, and the global demands for grains shift to other limited producers such as Ukraine and Russia when the US is suffering from drought. But unfortunately, over the last seven months almost, we have been witnessing battlefields and refugees and humanitarian crisis at the time of harvest and cultivation there. So in order to reduce the pressure of demands on the global market, I think individual countries require to enhance their own food self-sufficiency. As far as the MENA region, the Middle East and North Africa region, is concerned, they have rapid population increase. Yes, indeed, more than four times compared to the 1960s when their arable land is regarded as one of the hotspots that are vulnerable for the severe droughts due to the climate change. So I think it's very important to look at the deeper context and deeper backgrounds to understand the real situation.

[YAMAMOTO]
Speaking of extreme weather, Dr. Belay, it's truly heart-wrenching to see people suffering from consequences of drought in the Horn of Africa for years now. What kind of dire scenes are you witnessing, and from your perspective, what is making the situation so serious?

[BELAY]
I think we need to really contextualize what's happening right now. Yes, close to 20 million people are affected in our part of the region and the problem is really, really bad in Somalia. But the question is, what has sucked the resilience from those communities and from Africa in general? Northern Africa, and the rest of Africa, as mentioned, Northern Africa is thought as developed because mainly it has gone to the industrial forms of agriculture. The north has moved into so much dependence on the food that's coming from outside. COVID was an aha moment for all of us because those countries who were not depending on the outside world have survived the food crisis during COVID. So it was very clear that food sovereignty is a very important agenda for all of us. So, because of the historical reasons and the climate, as you have said, which has really, really made our part of the continent non-resilient, that's a problem. Why is it? Because we cannot produce? We don't have the land? No. We are made to be like this. Historical reasons starting from the European maritime intervention, colonialism, and post-independence, interventions in quite a number of them.

[YAMAMOTO]
Now, Dr. Hongzhou, China is a country with a huge population and a growing middle class. Some experts are worried that China's massive importing and stockpiling of grains are pushing up prices. Why is China taking this food policy, and how do you think that's affecting global food security?

[HONGZHOU]
China, with a 1.4 billion population, with limited agricultural resources to begin with especially on whatever terms, there's no way China can be self-sufficient given the rise in demand and also the shift in diet. So I think they realize that with the domestic resources they can't produce enough food. That's why China has to import more from the international market. Chinese President Xi Jinping has said several times, if a big famine occurs, money is useless. And then, he also said that you need to have grain in hand so that you do not panic. So, given the fact that China has to import more from the international market to deal with the risk of potential volatilities and uncertainties in global supplies, China feels that an adequate large reserve is needed to deal with potential shocks in global food supply or in domestic food supply. Whenever China opens up with market buying to buy certain commodities from the international market, the price goes up. This certainly happens in the agriculture sector as well. But as far as the recent, let's say, in terms of causes during the global food crisis, I think the picture is much more complicated. China's agriculture import has increased a lot, but a big part of the reason is the trade deal between the US and China. So, in early 2020, the two countries had signed a trade one deal under which China committed to buy 200 billion additional products from the US, a large part of it, a big part of it including agriculture products. But even in the course of two years, the US government has been complaining to China didn't buy enough, it hadn't fulfilled its commitment. So there has been a lot of pressure on this aspect as well.

[YAMAMOTO]
Okay, thank you very much. Now our following conversations will focus on response. How to get out of this daunting food crisis? First, let's look at the effects of price hikes on trade and distribution.

[VIDEO]
Due to the rise in food prices, many countries are accelerating moves to impose export restrictions on their farm products. In May, India, the world's second-largest wheat producer, announced that it would ban wheat exports. India's aim is to ensure a steady supply to its people as the price of wheat continues to rise.
[Woman]
"We can no longer live off our current income. We have no choice but to reduce the amount of food we eat."
[Protesters]
"Cooking oil! Cut prices!"
In Indonesia, people gathered to protest the high price of essential cooking oil. Indonesia accounts for nearly 60% of the global production of palm oil, a major source of cooking oil. To prioritize domestic supply, the government temporally banned its export starting from April. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, 19 countries have introduced export restrictions on food. There is mounting concern over the tendency for countries to impose export restrictions for the sake of securing domestic supplies.
[Janet Yellen / US Treasury Secretary]
"G20 countries must set the example and call on others to avoid counterproductive policy responses such as export restrictions and stockpiling."

[YAMAMOTO]
Dr. Hongzhou, I'd like to start with you. How is China tracking these export restrictions?

[HONGZHOU]
As far as China's response to the current global food crisis on export restrictions, volatilities in global trade, I think first and foremost, the country has prioritized domestic production. Over the past few years, you saw Chinese leaderships at multiple occasions stressing the need to boost domestic production. And then of course, they are also providing all sorts of financial and policy measures to encourage local governments and encourage farmers to produce more. I think this is for one. The other also is about cleaning up the reserve systems. Just now, we had talk about China's stockpiling effort, but on the other hand, I think one of the things that has been overlooked is that this is a very inefficient system. So many corruption cases and then also uncertainties. And over the past about two years, there were thousands of cases of corruption and the officials being put in jails from the agriculture or food reserve systems, grain reserve in particular. So I think the Chinese government has taken actions to clean up this reserve system.

[YAMAMOTO]
So, Dr. Hongzhou, what role can China play in the future to promote more equitable distribution?

[HONGZHOU]
I think, first and foremost, I would say, as the biggest agricultural grain producer and the biggest importer, China, the stability of domestic production is key. We also talked about climate change, climate shocks just now. Then, what is happening in China is also a very big worrying trend. The country has experienced the heatwave once in six decades. And then the drought is still threatening rice production. I think more effort of course is needed to ensure stability in domestic supply. That is for one. I think on the international side, more leadership is needed. I guess one of the so-called things China didn't do as compared to the previous global food crisis in 2007 and 2008 is an export ban. I think what happened back then is that China and a lot of exporting countries introduced export restrictions which contributed to the rise in food prices. And this time, I think at least from that perspective, it's a positive development. But of course, more is needed to ensure a stable global food system with more transparency in agricultural import and export policies.

[YAMAMOTO]
Ms. Ido, what's your take on the wave of export restrictions? And in the Middle East and North Africa, what changes are needed to the trade system so that they won't have to suffer the same fate again?

[IDO]
Yeah, actually, it is very difficult to deal with. But any national sovereignty is entitled to protect their own people first especially at the time of food crisis. And they have a right to restrict their food export to some extent. But as far as the MENA region is concerned, actually, yes, that is a critical issue. And these countries in the region used to depend on wheat from the US in the past. Especially the 1950s and '60s under the Cold War, wheat aid was a very important diplomatic tool for the US in the region. Since then, many MENA countries have tried to diversify their grain import partners from the US to European countries first, and then Russia and Ukraine. Since 2010 or so, these two countries, I mean Russia and Ukraine, have dominated the local grain market in the MENA region as their wheat prices are very competitive. Then this war started, and the closure of the Black Sea hit this region most. They are trying to diversify. I think diversification is a keyword here. But then their grain import partners such as India and Kazakhstan and so forth are coming up.

[YAMAMOTO]
Dr. Glauber, how about you? Your work has revolved around trade. Are you concerned about these trade restrictions?

[GLAUBER]
I think trade is even more important during times of crisis like this because you have to find alternative suppliers. And I think the system actually has been remarkably resilient. If you look at Egypt, I think Egypt's done a very good job of finding alternative suppliers. They've bought from India, they've bought from Kazakhstan, they've bought from Australia, other suppliers. Export restrictions are particularly pernicious. I mean, I understand from a sovereign point of view that you might want to keep prices low for consumers in that country. But unfortunately, what that does is export that volatility to the rest of the world, and unfortunately, that could be very contagious. As Dr. Zhang mentioned with 2007, 2008, what we saw was, a lot of countries put on bans on rice exports and the price of rice skyrocketed. And unfortunately, that hurts the poorest consumers around the world, but it also hurts producers within those countries because they aren't able to sell at prices they normally would. And Argentina is a wonderful case where Argentina for years put on export restrictions on wheat. And what happened? Producers stopped growing wheat. Wheat production declined precipitously during the late 2000s and 2010, 2012, 2013. They've since come back. They've taken off those restrictions and they are again supplying the world. But I think that export restrictions in particular, some progress has been made at the WTO at least exempting export restrictions from affecting the World Food Programme and other humanitarian aid. But I think more needs to be done because, again, like it or not, the world is becoming much more reliant on trade and that doesn't work if you have the ability of countries just to stop trade arbitrarily through export restrictions.

[YAMAMOTO]
Okay, I see. Dr. Belay, you're an advocate of food sovereignty for Africa. From your perspective, what are the problems with the food supply chain that goes from farmers to consumers, and what needs to be done?

[BELAY]
The rules and the regulations that are existing now favor actually those who are rich and powerful. And in terms of the food system, you know that the trade in grains, the trade in fertilizers and the other inputs are controlled by a few companies. And this consolidation of power is increasing. Unless we address that power relationship, the power asymmetry, I think it's very difficult to talk about international trade. And in this context, we should talk about food sovereignty. And I think the biggest challenge that we have with our farmers is that, whatever they produce, I think it is under the whim of speculators who are between what they produce and consumers, you know? So, the speculators are the problem. I have an example of coffee. Coffee, one time, I think I remember, the price of coffee in Ethiopia was zero-point-something pence, one birr at the time. And I went to the US in New York for a meeting, for an international meeting, and I went to one of the Starbucks. And the price of one pound at Starbucks was about nine dollars, nine US dollars. I was shocked, you know? Our farmers where this actual coffee is coming from, are getting much, much, much less. So there is imbalance. There is this imbalance. There are a number of countries which are not selling grains and food even if they have it. So it's very, very, very clear now that food sovereignty is very much important. Trade among ourselves, also among African countries is very important.

[YAMAMOTO]
Thank you. Next, let's explore the future of food production, ways to make it more stable and sustainable. Before our discussion, here's a look at some challenges that have emerged during the current crisis.

[VIDEO]
The shelves of convenience stores and supermarkets are filled with a wide array of food items. Many of them are produced and consumed in developed countries. This kind of rich and varied diet is the result of mass-produced crops using chemical fertilizers and agricultural chemicals. Today, this situation is also facing a crisis. Brazil is the world's top producer of soybeans. Their production is sustained by chemical fertilizers for which the country depends on imports. About 40% of the world's supply of potassium, a raw material of chemical fertilizers, comes from Russia and Belarus. Due to the Russian military invasion, the supply from the two nations fell sharply. The soaring price has hit the Brazilian farmers directly.
[Brazilian farmer]
"I'm worried about the rising prices of fertilizers and whether I can secure them for next year."
He says prices had doubled by May compared to last year. David Beasley, the WFP Executive Director, says that next year's food production will be affected if this continues.
[BEASLEY]
"This year, 2022, it's a food pricing problem. Next year, because of droughts and fertilizer crisis, we could have a food availability problem on top of a food pricing problem."
What action should be taken to deal with these issues in the future?

[YAMAMOTO]
Now, Dr. Glauber, why have chemical fertilizers become so important for food production, and how would a shortage of fertilizers affect productivity?

[GLAUBER]
Fertilizers have been one of the big technological innovations, I guess, since over the last 70 years or so. The spread of the use of organic macronutrients like nitrogen and potassium and phosphorus have been attributed to the growth of productivity worldwide. Unfortunately, unlike agricultural products, a lot of fertilizer components are very specific. They're mined in particular countries. They're not evenly distributed. A lot of it, in terms of nitrogen, is tied to natural gas. And so when you have high energy prices for a variety of reasons, not just demand for fertilizer but for energy, that also affects nitrogen-based fertilizers. And what we're seeing, again, even prior to the war, are very, very high fertilizer prices in the world. And that hurts the margins for farmers. Farmers either will choose crops that are less fertilizer-intensive, or they will use less fertilizer. And both of those can have serious implications for production. We've talked a lot about high prices. One crop the prices have been far more moderate have been rice, our rice prices. We've had ample supplies in the world. We've had relatively low prices for rice relative to the other grains over the last six months. But here again, rice is very nitrogen-intensive. It's very phosphorus and potassium-intensive. And so those margins for the rice farmers, they're much, much reduced now and it's a lot less profitable to grow rice. And so that's a big concern. But I think fertilizer, it's hard to envision a world without fertilizer because this has been such a huge contributor to the productivity we've seen. There's a lot of green fertilizer and other things that can be helpful here, but that's down the road. That's not something you can turn to tomorrow. I think fertilizers are very, very important for world productivity.

[HONGZHOU]
I think I'd like to talk a few words about fertilizer. And this is a very important, serious issue in the context of China. Over the decades, China has tried so hard to boost domestic production, but it is also achieved through intensive farming, overuse of fertilizer and pesticides which of course created a lot of problems for sustainability, for long-term competent use of the country's agriculture sector. I think this is a big risk not only for China but for the world as well. I think this is something. And of course, on the other hand, China is trying to reduce fertilizer consumption because much of the fertilizer applications have been ineffective. The use efficiency was very low. They are trying to teach the farmers to increase this and also new technology. So I think around technologies, they are trying to promote GMOs which can be adjusted to increase yield while reducing consumption. But of course, there's a lot of controversy on this.

[YAMAMOTO]
Dr. Belay, I'm sure you have lots to say about this because you're a strong advocate for agroecology. Why do you think that approach, agroecology, is important for Africa?

[BELAY]
I think it ticks so many questions that we are asking. That's it. I agree with Dr. Glauber that stopping the use of fertilizer right now would be a disaster. But fertilizers are high in greenhouse gases, and their production also requires a lot of oil in the climate crisis that we are in and also stammering. But agroecology ticks, one, increase in productivity. It ticks in nutrition, because what you grow is diverse food. It ticks health. It ticks also production without impacting the environment. You also actually contribute to the degradation of the environment, so it increases biodiversity. It ticks also a question of cultural appropriateness of food. There's plenty of culturally appropriate food in Africa so that's very, very much critical for us. It's based on cutting-edge science, science from biochemistry, microbiology, human-related sciences, and also the knowledge of farmers which was accumulated thousands of years ago. It uses both forms of knowledge. We have data, the pile of data, and also, scientific discoveries around agroecology is continuing. So that's why we are saying that it's the future of agriculture for Africa.

[YAMAMOTO]
When you say cultural crops, are you talking about indigenous traditional crops that Africa had been planting for years, for many centuries?

[BELAY]
We have more than 100 varieties of wheat, more than 60 varieties of barley in Ethiopia. If you go to Uganda, the banana species there, it's more than 20, you know? In this time of crisis, global crisis which is exacerbated by the climate, you need resilience. Resilience means diversity. If two, three, four, five of your crops are dying, then there are other crops to revert to. So it's very, very much important we build resilience into our system in the time of crisis.

[YAMAMOTO]
Dr. Glauber, what can you say about this balance of chemical fertilizers and green fertilizers?

[GLAUBER]
Yeah, I would just echo what Dr. Belay was saying that I think that the green fertilizer is certainly a technology that really needs to be furthered and adopted. I think that it makes a lot of sense. And Dr. Hongzhou's point about inefficient fertilizer use. I mean, that's certainly true in the US, it's certainly true in the European Union that farmers tend to overapply fertilizers, and that needs to be done in a far, far more efficient way to get the productivity gains but not be wasteful in one sense. But I think that, again, a lot can be done with augmenting it with green fertilizers. So I think the two are compatible. Again, I think everyone is in agreement here that this isn't something that you just turn on a light switch and you make a change. It will have to happen over time. But as was mentioned with previous speakers, there are greenhouse gas implications, there's all sorts of things that I think a lot of progress needs to be made here and the transition needs to be made towards more sustainable farming practices.

[YAMAMOTO]
I see. And Ms. Ido, you've been saying that countries that depend on food imports need to become more self-sufficient. By that, what crops, what kind of crops are you talking about?

[IDO]
Well, yeah, as our colleague from Addis Ababa mentioned, there are so many traditional grains. Millet grains or... There are so many species, so many plants and grains, and we can actually invest more the possibility to find out the best crops for our future. But I think, again, diversification here is the keyword for food security and food sovereignty for the long term. Yes, I agree we cannot stop utilizing chemical fertilizers and we need to invest more on the other green fertilizers and organic fertilizers that are suitable for our time of climate change. But, again, diversification is going to be our keyword. In the past decade, we have too much concentrated on several limited numbers of grain, especially wheat, corn and rice. But, again, there are many traditional grains, people say "forgotten millet grains," that have been locally cultivated and eaten as their local food culture in many parts of the world. For example, sorghum is one of the examples. Sorghum originated from Sudan, the eastern part of Africa, and spread across the Eurasian continent up to East Asia. Kaoliang, you say in China, and morokoshi in Japan. And sorghum is a nutritious millet grain still now eaten in Sudan, and before used to be eaten in Upper Egypt as well. But it is used as feed for livestock in other parts of Africa now. But interestingly, in recent years, sorghum is revalued as a gluten-free grain and newly packaged for organic food markets in the US and some European countries. So I think it is the right time for all of us to diversify what we eat and we value what we have.

[YAMAMOTO]
Dr. Hongzhou, China has also helped African countries increase their food production. How important have these initiatives been for both sides? And from a global perspective, what challenges are there going forward?

[HONGZHOU]
China has been playing a very important role in providing all sorts of assistance to Africa in terms of agriculture production, in terms of technology transfer. This I think, at least from the Chinese perspective, benefits both sides. Because after China had become the biggest importer, there was so much international pressure on the China demand, on the China import, on global food price like what happened in 2007, 2008 and like what's happening right now. Whenever there was a rise in food prices, people would point to China and say, you guys are importing more and that's why the African people are suffering. I think from this perspective, in China's view or the policymakers' view, if China can help African countries to grow more food so that less people will suffer, then when things happen, there will be less pressure on China. And also from an economic perspective, because African countries are also importing from international markets, as China became the biggest importer, if China's technology, China's assistance can help with local production, local self-sufficiency, African countries will import less from the international market which means less competition for China in buying food from exporters.

[YAMAMOTO]
Ms. Ido, there are so many people in the world who are starving, while on the other hand, there are many people who are eating too much or wasting food. How can we change the system so that food can be shared more equally regardless of each country's wealth?

[IDO]
Thank you. I think we need to change our patterns of food production and consumption from the current mass and cruel or exploitive type of industry to a more fair, sustainable system. So actually, indeed, yes, it is so painful to see many people suffering from the lack of sufficient food in many parts of the globe. On the other hand, for example, in Japan, we abandon a huge amount of food every day. Actually, as a Japanese citizen, I feel ashamed of mentioning our food self-sufficiency rate which is around 38%, and we are not actually entitled to waste any food. So reducing food loss is a must step, and there are lots of things we can do to change our local food distribution system. I believe this is a very important step to reduce the global food gap.

[YAMAMOTO]
I see. Now, Dr. Glauber, this is the big question. How long do you think this food crisis will last? When will we get through this dark tunnel?

[GLAUBER]
Yeah, if you'd asked me at the beginning of the year before the war, I think my answer would have been that we would begin to see global supplies rebound from the droughts that occurred last year and that stocks would be rebuilt and we'd see lower prices certainly by the end of this year and going into next year. That's clearly not the case. Unfortunately, the Ukraine war has affected not just last year's crops that Ukraine has been unable to ship, it's affected the current crops that they've had difficulties harvesting. And because grain isn't moving out of Ukraine very fast, they've essentially had to store most of what has been produced this year. That means the prices are very, very low within Ukraine relative to the world markets. And as a consequence, with high input cost, I think that we'll see less grain produced there. That means that this will affect not just last year's crop, this year's crop, but also next year's crop. And so I think that that's a real concern. Again, so much depends on when this war is over, but I think this really puts it into 2023 before we see recovery.

[YAMAMOTO]
Well, time's up for today's discussion. Thank you all very much for your deep insights. That's all for this edition of GLOBAL AGENDA. Thank you for joining us.