Three visions for food systems change
A promotional video-conversation facilitated by the UN foundation accidently captured contrasting visions for what the problems are in the food system and how to fix them.
A house divided
Late September, the UN Secretary General convened a “Food Systems Summit” (UNFSS) aimed at reframing lagging commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals through the lens of food. Immediately, the structure, framing, and governance of the event came under criticism from activist groups and smallholder farm unions, who had for decades worked to build legitimacy for their policy positions through the existing participation forums at the UN. Namely, constituencies representing agroecological famers had doggedly slogged through the UN’s Committee for Food Security, challenging the core assumptions about why people are hungry, why the food system is the way it is, and what should be done about it. There, the dominant “food security discourse” was challenged, shifting food policy from a goal of producing more food to that of analyzing relations of food distribution and democratic participation.
The UNFSS thus bypassed these traditional democratic sparring grounds and set its own fresh rules about who gets to participate, how the topics of debate were framed, and what counted as participation. This created a problem for the many civil servants and activists who were installed in UN processes. They could participate, but risk their presence lending legitimacy to the a new status quo on global food governance, or withdraw, and have their voice marginalized via their absence. The decision, largely, was a boycott of the summit and the rapid convening of a parallel events to show that the UN event didn’t have the consent of a diversity of agricultural actors even though it called itself “the people’s summit.”
The resulting splintering forced a long going battle for the debate over the nature of global food governance to spill into public view. A problem, however, was that the boycott created a parallel debate process, with the productivists and techno-optimists in one room and and the political economists and farmer union reps in the other.
Yet, a post event science communication webinar series, Say it with Science: the Food Climate Nexus, aiming to “provide an insider’s breakdown of the 2021 Food Systems Summit” accidently brought together two of the opposing camps into the same 30 minute conversation. From one perspective, comes Dr. Agnes Kalibata, former Minister of Agriculture in Rwanda, current president of the Gates funded Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the 2021 Food Systems Summit. From the other, comes Dr. Rachel Bezner-Kerr, an interdisciplinary researcher who has been facilitating farmer-led research in Malawi for over two decades.
Facilitated by an earnest yet somewhat oblivious Vox reporter, I felt the conversation set the stage for an entertaining rehashing of the larger debate about food system governance. The debate is waged subtly, because the guests weren’t asked directly to demonstrate their theory of food system change, but were asked non-sequiturs about climate and food, leading to some creative responses and forceful interjections. I found it an excellent short video to study and wanted to share and as a way to introduce the broader debates within food systems research to students. There is also a bonus contribution from chef Conor Spacey, who represents perhaps a third-way approach to food systems change.
I’ve made my own edited down version of the debate to share as widely as you like at the following link. A transcript of the conversation follows.
Transcript of the conversation
[00:00:00] Arielle Duhaime Ross: So. Let's dive in. Joining us today, we have Dr. Agnes Kalibata, the, UN special envoy on the food system summit. We also have Dr. Rachel Bezner-Kerr, global development professor at Cornell University, and Connor Spacey chef and culinary director of Food Space Ireland. Um, so let's start right at the beginning, the science and the impact. Dr. Kalibata, can you give us a high level overview of the connection between food and climate, you know, what does the latest science tell us about how climate is impacting food and likewise, how our food systems are exacerbating the climate crisis.
[00:00:36] Agnes Kalibata: Thank you so much. Let me just start by saying that, um, we depend on the climate for food. You need climate to function for us to be able to have, the different types of food, that we have enjoyed for decades. So what has happened in the last few years is climate change has started being a serious menace to producers. We don't produce enough anymore. So, let me just paint the picture for you. In 2015, when we signed the SDGs and committed to come through on ending hunger, it's actually the very year that hunger began increasing. If you are on the equator, the frequency of droughts since 2012, just went out of, you know, control. If you look at things today, for every three season, one season is failed for farmers that live in food systems. So that is very challenging.
But it's increasingly poverty, it's ruining the ability to understand [that nobody is going to care coming] from a climate perspective. And it's eroding the ability of communities to be able to put nutritious food on the table. But from a biodiversity perspective, let's look at the fact that the rate of loss by diversity is exacerbated by climate change itself. So the problem is big. But more importantly, for all these communities is like we just heard from this gentleman from the Philippines. The ability to be able to feed their families, the ability or even the thought that they might get out of poverty using the means of production available to them is not going to be possible unless we fix the challenge of climate change. On the other hand, food systems are impacting climate change. We are contributing 30% to climate change. We are eroding biodiversity by a rate of 80%. So, so it's really a chicken and egg, but for me, I really think that this is a "code red" like has been indicated in the most recent IPCC. We don't have a choice. So the opportunity of this food systems summit was really to bring this conversation to everybody. To have people understand, that our planet depends on the choices we make every day and the choices we're making in food are contributing 30% to destroying our planet.
[00:03:00] Arielle Duhaime Ross: Thank you so much for that. Dr. Bezner-Kerr, we know that the science and the latest IPCC report indicates a hotter future is certain. But, you know, with that in mind. What keeps you up at night, when you're thinking about food systems and food security? How long do we have to reverse some of the remaining uncertainty?
[00:03:21] Rachel Bezner-Kerr: Thank you so much, Arielle and I am privileged to be part of this panel. And I think the question of what keeps me up at night, for the last three years, I've had the privilege of working alongside climate scientists and other scientists from around the world on the IPCC working group two report, which is, uh, due to be coming out of next year and what we've studied and learned about in our assessment definitely keeps me up at night. Because we're looking at impacts vulnerability and adaptation solutions. But in many ways, what also keeps me up at night is the thinking about the ways in which, because I came to the IPCC and I'm here speaking as an independent scientist, not on behalf of the IPCC because our report isn't yet released until next year. But I came with long experience, over two decades of experience, working with small holder farmers in Malawi and Tanzania on participatory research, doing research on ways to improve their food security and nutrition. And what keeps me up at night as well is the ways in which our food system is already broken and is really contributing to the problem at hand.
Dr. Kalibata mentioned that about a third of the greenhouse gases come from the food system. And part of that is how we produce food. So we grow food globally, largely like a factory. It's often called industrial food systems because it's an input output model where you have synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, mechanization ... seeds that use a lot of fossil fuels in order to produce them, in order to distribute them, in order to apply them.
And the kinds of foods that we also consume, also produce a lot of greenhouse gases. So we're eating more red meat and dairy than is good for our health. And it's contributing a lot to greenhouse gases. But that's only part of the problem that keeps me up at night because, it's not just how we're producing food, but who holds the power within the food system that is part of the problem. Because it's only a very few companies that produce the seeds, the fertilizer, the pesticides. It's a highly concentrated industry of only a few very large companies, which gives them a lot of power over the food system. It's a highly undemocratic food system. And at the same time on the retail side, we have very few number of companies that are selling products, which themselves are making us sick. So in high-income countries, over 80% of the disease burden lies with non-communicable diseases like diabetes and chronic heart disease, which are caused in part by unhealthy foods that we're eating and we're not producing enough of the diverse fruits and vegetables and whole grains that we need to stay healthy. And part of the issue is not looking for the solutions with marginalized voices who are most affected by climate change. So those small holder farmers, hold a lot of the solutions. For addressing climate change, but they themselves are most impacted. And then Dr. Kalibata described very eloquently how droughts, floods, extreme events are already impacting people in Malawi and in India, around the world, who are least equipped to be able to deal with that. So those, those two sides of the equation really do keep me up at night. And it comes down in a way to a deeply unequal food system which is contributing to the problem and exacerbating climate change impacts for all of us, but particularly for marginalized people.
[00:07:11] Arielle Duhaime Ross: I'm really interested in the idea of trying to make the power within the food system more diffuse. Actually I think this is a perfect segue into chef Spacey. When you look at the food industry and the way that we produce food at large, can you tell us a bit about how we got here? And from your perspective, being so deeply involved in, food, how do we make that power more diffuse? How do we ensure that marginalized communities are part of the conversation?
[00:07:39] Conor Spacey: I think you're right. I think for us to understand why our food system is the way it is and how broken it is, we need to understand why, how we got here. And if we think back, and it's not that long ago, we go back to the 1800s, when we were a much smaller population. And we were just at a billion people and we struggled to feed people at that time. If you think about it, most countries on the planet we're affected one way or another around food Ireland ourselves in the had a famine during the 1840s.
And a lot of countries were affected around the food system. So what had happened was food needed to be grown more. It needed to be grown quicker. And faster. And I suppose in some ways, we needed to feed a billion people better, was the plan at that time.
I'm very like Doctor Bezner-Kerr just mentioned. That system fast forward to today, is where the problems lie. It's that system that was initially set up to actually hope the planet, is the same system that is now not helping the planet. In fact, it's done the opposite. And we need to learn from that to be able to move forward. I'm a chef of over thirty years, and I've never been comfortable seeing our food system first hand. And what I mean by first hand is, seeing how we buy our food, how we treat our food, and how we set our food onto our consumers. Food we waste, the food and travels literally over the planet when it doesn't have to travel over the planet. And it's something that we're really ...
I don't know how to describe it. It's something I've never been comfortable with. And I've always been determined to try and see how we make it better? How do we change a food system. For me a lot a lot of my answers were to look at local food and seasonal foods. And yes it's really important. Of course geographically, that all depends on where we are on the planet. And also as a food system food will always will have to travel. You know, we are part of a global food system. To me, it was more about trying to reconnect people to food. And that to me is where we understand the science behind where we are and where our planet is. And a lot of it is around education to reconnect people on the planet. Not just here in my country or your country. Globally, we connect to food. And to understand the problems before we can understand how you can come together to fix it.
[00:10:32] Agnes Kalibata: So it's really great to be on the same phone with you Rachel and Spacey. I want to first of all, say one way we are engaging communities. We had the food system summit. And in this summit, what we did was really to try to reach out to millions of people, hundreds of people, to just make sure that we are hearing their voices as well. But let's go back to the question, the point you raised Rachel around inequity in food systems. And it's true. We have huge inequity, but the power point that you are talking about, when I look at what I see in Africa here today.
It's a very different perspective from what you're describing. The whole centralization of things in corporates in a few hands. But we don't have that as much, right? Even as we know, being able to get seed, you have to get it from somewhere. So for me, the question is when we call out all these challenges, what are the solutions to these challenges? How do we contextualize the the fact that, our food systems are so complex and so different. On one hand you have dairy and livestock and big ag as one problem. And another hand you have people that are in the very systems we are describing here, living sub optimally. Spacey just talked about it. Living suboptimally. The very food systems that we used to live in well, where there was much more to distributional the choice on food, these people don't have a life. They live in poverty. So what, what is the, what is the middle ground for these things?
[00:12:16] Rachel Bezner-Kerr: Yeah. I'm so glad you asked that question because in fact, in my experience working for over two decades in Malawi, there is a highly concentrated seed and fertilizer industry also in Malawi. Very few large foreign multinational corporations are, are the same companies operating there. To me, the solution lies in part, with an approach, um, which I've been using with my fellow, my fellow researchers, and in Malawi, farmers, agroecology. And agroecology is in contrast to an industrial model. It is a holistic approach to growing food, which uses principles like increasing biodiversity. You mentioned the low biodiversity that we have right now. And it's, it's an emergency in and of itself. Building synergies between different parts of the system. Reducing the use of dependence on external inputs and recycling organic matter back into the soil. Recycling energy. But also importantly, drawing on indigenous and local knowledge. And so this means co-producing scientific knowledge with farmers. And this is a really important dimension of agroecology which is, which is in contrast to the industrial model. And chef Spacey you mentioned it, rebuilding connections between producers and consumers, to try to strengthen local and regional markets. Yes, some of our food will be global, but a lot of it can be produced locally and ensuring equity in the food system through addressing questions of inequity in the governance of global food systems. So, this is a really sort of core to the work that we've been doing. And in our results and we've published numerous publications showing that taking this approach has improved food security. It's improved nutrition, including children and women and livelihoods, for small holder farmers while also strengthening the environmental services that we get from land, water, and soil. So this is, the approach that I think is really an important part of the solution to fixing our broken food system.
And I want to come back to something that chef Spacey mentioned, which I think is important too. And that you mentioned as well at the beginning, Dr. Kalibata, you mentioned that, you know, we don't have enough food. In fact, we produced more than three times the amount that is needed to feed our global human population. It's a problem of distribution and the kinds of food that we're producing. You mentioned the Irish famine chef's Spacey, I mean, that famine . . .It was a large part to do with colonialism. And colonialism and imperialism are a big part of how we got to where we are today and shaped our global food system in really profound ways and set up an international trade system that really put a lot of countries at a major disadvantage. So there were major famines experienced in the eight late eighteen hundreds in India, in China and that famine was produced through colonial relations. Because the British we're imposing production of food for, or products for export rather than local food for local communities. And some of those unequal power relations, I'm not picking on Britain, but because you mentioned, uh, Ireland, all of the Western union countries, we're involved in the game. But some of those, colonial and post-colonial relations reverberate in the contemporary period. So we see low income countries, there's a pattern that is, is due to this long history of colonialism and imperialism. So again power it is really at the heart of the solution because it's part of what led to the problem in the first place.
Maybe Arielle. Arielle wants to get in another question.
[00:16:14] Arielle Duhaime Ross: Yeah, well, actually I was going to say, one of the things that I hear you talking about, is about going back to far more sustainable ways of farming. Things like maybe carbon farming. Not just doing monoculture, those kinds of things. And from what I understand, and chef Spacey, you have been working on sustainable farming? Is that, is that correct?
[00:16:35] Conor Spacey: Yeah, so, I suppose the ethos around Food Space here in Ireland ... We're a catering company. We have over 20 cafes across the island of Ireland.
I suppose the best way to describe it is to dive deeply into our own local food system. I look at it that, as a company, we have a huge responsibility to where and how we spend our money. So we, we work off of what we call a 50 mile menu. So that each of our kitchens work within their own locality. And it's not about, you know, I buy food from a guy because he sells it and that food might've been imported from across the world. It's about what's growing or produced from local farmers in our areas, new near our kitchens. So every single kitchen is very different. They all work with their own food systems and their own localities. And it's about building a community around food. Because, we spoke just like we all eat for very very different reasons. And as people we need to understand and, and I suppose use that as well, to build these communities. We can eat because we're happy, because we're sad. You could eat because of our religion. Because we're on holidays. It's very different reasons to why we're sat around a table. But if we can build that table around communities, That's how we build our food system to our business. So it's very much about working with farmers for us. And not in a way that chefs ...
I give an idea. A chef is very much about, you know, I want to make or produce a certain dish, because I think it's going to look well, it's going to taste well and my customers are going to like it. And for me, it's about taking that thought process and turning it on it's head and going, "well hang on." It's not about what I want to cook or what I think will look well, or will taste great. It's about what food and ingredients are available to me right now. And that really limits me in a good way, because it means that I can only produce food that's seasonal,. that the farmer is telling me is ready. Or for other reasons. We would buy food where the farmer has an excess of food that they can't sell to market. Or because supermarkets might have cancelled on them even though they have crops ready. So we intervene there and buy that food to make sure that the farmer gets an income and that keeps them sustainable. And also then we will then produce that food throughout those localities. So it's really about joining the dots and taking responsibility as chefs to go ... It's more than just me. It's not about me as a personal chef wanting to cook a certain dish. I need to understand how, how I can do it better. I need to understand my carbon footprint, how I can be more sustainable. And step up to that responsibility.
[00:19:25] Arielle Duhaime Ross: That's great. I always think that, constraints and limitations are how you could get creative. Right? Like having those conversations, is a really good place to, to start with that. And so with that in mind, Dr. Kalibata, I'm curious. Why exactly was the food systems summit called "the people's summit." and what gave you hope from that summit? And where would you like to see more progress?
[00:19:51] Agnes Kalibata: Thank you so much for that question. I mean, the food system summit recognizes that we are behind on all 17 SDGs. Recognizes that in fact, like I said earlier, in some we've been working the wrong direction. Especially on Hunger and on Poverty. We really are off track in a number of ways. But it also recognizes that the food, which, Spacey was saying, brings us together in unbelievable ways. It brings us together for different reasons. It's an opportunity to really, for mankind to rethink where we are going. It's such a journey too. All the way from production to the folk, like Rachel was saying. It's such a journey, that we could rethink. We could rethink and really be able to correct a number of things that are going wrong. So, part of why we come into the food system summit was to really have a conversation as a people and help people understand that we all have a place to play. We all have an opportunity to be part of the solution to the food challenge. I always tell people about the "avocado story" you know? And in Europe, you get a size 2012. And what you don't know by the retailer defining that size 2012 avocado, is that 90% of the avocados are left on the farm. With all the water that was used to grow them and all that stuff remains on the farm and that's why Rachel is saying we have more food than we need. We are actually wasting $1 trillion of food.
So the summit was an opportunity for us to bring that core position to people. To help people understand that, we actually have a challenge, you know, I mean this. But it's also an opportunity for us to mobilize solutions. We have worked with a lot of action tracks and we have mobilized 2,500 ideas ...that are world changing ideas, that have been clustered in about 52 solutions and these solutions provide an opportunity for people in the field to think about how they can deal with some of the challenges we have. For example, if you want a solution on sustainable livestock, there are institutions that provided an idea of what sustainable livestock looks like. And you can go onto Google them, you can go and talk to them. Their contacts and telephone numbers. And this this is so important. When I became minister of agriculture in my country, I didn't know who to turn to. Just knowing that there's a whole lot of information out there, at the click of a button, you can go to these people and start discussing with them the different ideas and opportunities that are out there. Whether it is agroecology, whether it is organic farming ... these institutions are out there that can provide you help. So the summit did provide that. But, the most important part of the summit was the fact that countries for the first time, are having conversations from a food system perspective. Not an ending hunger perspective. Not a dealing with nutrition perspective, not an environmental perspective, but food system perspective. Recognizing that the cost of inaction on food is costing us in terms of health, it's costing us in terms of poverty, it's costing us in terms of environment, it's costing us in terms of biodiversity. So all these things brought together, really ensured that we had a summit that was giving us an opportunity to talk about the opportunities that we could harness from the food system. The mobilization that we could bring together as a people to be able to understand the ability we have to change our world. But also then really redefined for us what is at stake, as the IPCC series and report sheet says. I mean, we just have to do something to fix our food system. So, so really the summit was an opportunity to bring all this to the fore. And even though, as I talk, countries are still commenting. 155 countries, 12 hours was not enough. We had so many constituencies engaged. And for me, that's the biggest success. The fact that so many people understand, what's at stake now. And understand that they each have something to do about it.
[00:23:59] Arielle Duhaime Ross: I always, I feel like climate change is this thing that allows people, this lens through which people can understand just how interconnected everything actually is. This is really a realization that we actually need to come to, at this point in time and, I'm curious, Dr. Bezner-Kerr you used the term by farmers, for farmers. Can you explain that phrase and share a story about how communities are taking food solutions into their own hands?
[00:24:28] Rachel Bezner-Kerr: Yes. I've been privileged to work alongside farmers in, mostly in Malawi. I did a work in Tanzania for five years, but, uh, over the last 20 years I've been working in Malawi. And farmers doing experiments themselves, testing different options themselves, and then sharing with other farmers. And these are really small holder farmers, you know, farmers with less than a hectare of land, who are food insecure. Who are facing deep poverty and tremendous other challenges. And that privilege has really given me insight into how much we can learn from them and how much they can teach others about solutions. And it's not just about food production, but, chef Spacey talked about, you know, building community.
And I've raised this issue of inequity and inequity is operating at the household level. Gender inequity, deep gender inequity in many different parts of the world, that leads and fosters child, malnutrition and other difficulties. But also an inequity of poor communities who don't have access to enough resources and Dr. Kalibata made reference to this. I think listening to those marginalized voices has been what's so inspiring. Seeing their ability to, solve local problems, come up with solutions and really improve their wellbeing and improve their lot with a small amount of support and encouragement from others. So I think this kind of participatory research and co-production of knowledge, learning from marginalized voices is a big part of the solution, as well as tackling these deep inequities at a global scale. And I think that's equally as important. I'd be remiss to not mention that the UN food system summit was initially criticized for maybe not bringing in enough of those marginalized voices and giving a little too much credit and time to some of these big, big companies for kind of calling the shots in our food system. And not listening to marginalized voices enough. So I think a people's summit is really important and really deeply respecting those who are, facing food insecurity and recognizing their knowledge as being an equally valid and important to learn from is, something that I think is really important and a part of the solution.
[00:27:04] Arielle Duhaime Ross: Chef Spacey, one of the things that you mentioned earlier was that people eat for different reasons. I'm wondering from your perspective, how exactly do you reach people's minds? In order to even begin to broach the way that, .... do you even broach changing the way that people consume it? I want to be clear when I ask this question, because I think that sometimes it can be ....I think that this is an important aspect of things and also, I don't necessarily think that individual action is the most important thing that we need to do for climate change. Actually, I think that it's about politics, I think it's about industry. It's about companies. But, there are things that people can do at home. Right. And you can also convince them to vote differently as well. So how do you start to change people's minds and to have them understand these issues.
[00:27:53] Conor Spacey: It's a great question. And I think we put a lot of thought into how we get our message across to consumers. And education is key. So we in our business, we spend a lot of time on our marketing campaigns. Around how we educate our consumers about the choices we as a company have made and why. For instance, five years ago, we banned, avocados totally. And they were cool and hip at the time. And every hipster wanted Avocado with their breakfast or brunch. And we stopped it and we banned them, but before we did, we did a build up marketing. a month before we took them off the menu and banned them, about why. So we spoke about why ...it's not about the avocado itself. It's about the avocados that are coming to Ireland. And where they are exported from. And the amount of water that's used to produce them, the amount of forest that is cut down to grow more and so on. We educate them around the climate impact, around the social impact. And then we explain why we're no longer using a product.
That is one example. And then we show them an alternative. Like for instance, in Ireland. We grow lots of greens around like kales and spinaches and so on. So we say, forget your avocado, use this. This is why, this is the impact it's having, this is what you can use instead. And then we share recipes. They take them home with them. We do demos online. It's a lot more than just eating in one of our establishments. When I spoke of local communities, we're trying to build an awareness around what we do. The last one we did, , we stopped all products of palm oil. And we explained why. It's not about the palm, not about the kernel itself. And in a lot of cultures, that's still a huge part of the culture and they use it still today. It's not about that. It's about the palm oil in the juice and in the products that we use here in this country. That are imported from the companies that you were talking about. And how that is controlled. So when we banned that, we explained again, why which also laid into different huge corporations around chocolate. That led into how the cacao was harvested. And how even down to human trafficking and so on, to harvest chocolate. So we are blowing people's minds, but we're connecting the dots as we feed them. And that's I think when you're sat around a table sharing food, it's also an opportunity to educate. And that's, the vision, I suppose, that we take ... that our consumers know , but also give them options. It's not about going, we don't use palm oil, full stop. It's about going
"We don't and this is why. And this is other alternatives. And this is what you as a consumer are going to look for when you go shopping." Or when you eat out elsewhere. It's really connecting the dots. So that our people that eat with us would also go away feeling that they've learned something. had great food, and enjoyed themselves, and taken something from the table as well. That to me, is that key education.
[00:31:06] Arielle Duhaime Ross: Okay. So we don't have that much time left. We have about three minutes. So I. I'm curious, does anybody have any burning. Thoughts closing thoughts that they would like to share, you know, on, on the idea. Where do we go from here? Right. We just had this great conversation. I feel like I've learned a lot. What's next?
[00:31:25] Agnes Kalibata: May I come in? Thank you. So I'm a little bit concerned about some of where I see us going, and I will qualify that. So Spacey, while I admire your ability to drive local systems and local production. But there's a whole context here. Understanding that that avocado is supplied by a farmer who depends on it on you as a market, is extremely important. So let's not forget that. We also have a global system that we need to work through and what we are doing impacts...you know, one thing I've learned through this food system summit, is that what you do locally impacts many of us around the world. So I just want you to think about that, but also this whole idea of corporate, versus small, versus colonization versus whatever - I just find it unacceptable. To be talking about Malawi as if Malawi is a global standard ... A gold standard when it is one of the poorest countries in the world. When farmers in Malawi can't feed their children, you know. And we need to face these facts. Let's tell people, how using the systems that we are talking about. Uh, agroecology, how they can move them to feed their children. You know, Let's not have people dumping fertilizers in their farms at 300 metric tons per hectare and Africans doing nothing and saying that's okay. Africans need to feed themselves to other parts of the world need to feed themselves too. So let's find a good balance, in our world. Let's not talk about extremes of how who gets to do business. I don't talk about colonialism because if I started, I would be hitting people. And I don't want to hit, I want us to live in the world where we all, uh, you know, can live with each other. So let's really try to understand, there's no gold standard. There's no one size fits all. Different people have to find, in their environments, ways to harness and move on and be able to live and have a decent living.
[00:33:32] Rachel Bezner-Kerr: Thanks, Dr. Kalibata, I would agree. There is no one size fits all. And I think that, uh, the example of Malawi that I gave is one where, Malawians have improved their food security and nutrition in a very difficult circumstance. And so that's why I held it up as an example. And I think it's important to understand how we got here in order to look for solutions, but I agree entirely that there isn't one size fits all. And that we. We have a lot of solutions on the table, which are exciting and innovative. And I held up agroecology and marginalized voices because I really think that they are, overlooked often and not listened to enough. But, I appreciate the opportunity to sharing the table with you.
[00:34:20] Agnes Kalibata: I definitely agree with you. These are issues we must continue pursuing. And really thank you for sharing your ideas.
[00:34:29] Arielle Duhaime Ross: Yeah, thank you so much. Everybody Dr. Kalibata I just want to say that I really appreciate what you just said and thank you for sharing those thoughts with us. Truly.