American Leadership, Agriculture, and a Global Pandemic

This week's blog comes in the form of a vlog! The video below is a recap of a webinar that Brad Kinsinger, director of the Global Agriculture Learning Center, attended organized by the United States Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC). The USGLC is a bipartisan group that promotes international development and diplomacy as part of the international affairs budget. Below the video link I will summarize some of the areas to further analyze as suggested in the video.

American Leadership and a Global Pandemic

Discussion Points

• "The economic crisis is just starting." What does this look like to the agriculture world? How has the agriculture economy been impacted or will it be impacted by COVID-19?
• "As long as there are cases in the world this is a United States issue." Why is this?
• "This global pandemic will magnify the global food crisis as well as regional and domestic food challenges. Long term investment in food security is so important." Why is long-term investment in food security so important? Explain.
• "When America leads, others follow. There is no substitution for American leadership. Science based and data driven global leadership is needed from the United States." Do you agree with this? Why or Why not? Does your view of this statement change if you are from different parts of the world?

The First 1,000 Days

This week I am in Anaheim, California at the National Association of Agricultural Educators conference. This is always a spectacular week of professional development and celebration of spectacular agricultural educators. One of the workshops presented yesterday was titled "The First 1,000 Days: A case study of cross-curricular global engagement around authentic problems" presented by Darla Romberger, Dr. Daniel Foster, and Dr. Melanie Miller Foster. This workshop revolved around a multi-day lesson developed by Darla focusing on the book by Roger Thurow, The First 1,000 Days. As part of the lesson Darla shared a video from Roger and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Linked below is the video that was shared and discussion points to guide conversations around the globe!

The First 1,000 Days by Roger Thurow

Discussion Points

• Explain what the "First 1,000 Days" are. Why are the "First 1,000 Days" so important?
•  Roger Thurow shares the following quote in the video, "A lost chance at greatness for one, is a lost chance for all." What does this quote mean to you?
• What is agriculture's role in the "First 1,000 Days?"
• Is fighting malnutrition in the "First 1,000 Days" restricted to just developing countries or certain parts of the world? Explain your thoughts.
• What can you do in your local community to make others aware of the importance of the "First 1,000 Days?"

Agriculture and Health Come Together

The Director-General of the FAO came together with health ministers at a G7 gathering to stress the need to transform food systems to improve health and nutrition. Some intriguing points are shared in the linked article. We encourage you to read the article and utilize the discussion points provided to guide conversations in classrooms, coffee shops, and communities around the globe!

FAO to G7: Urgent Action Needed to Curb Malnutrition Globally

Discussion Points

• Hunger is one of three concerns globally with malnutrition. What other areas are of concern to malnutrition and why?
• What piece of information from the article surprised you the most and why? 
• The following was quoted in the article: "Transforming food systems to promote healthy diets means taking action in each step of the food chain, from farm to fork." What ideas do you have to transform the food system and why would they work?
• Why is the "One Health" approach so important to ensuring food safety?

World Food Prize is Here!

It is mid October which means one thing...It's World Food Prize time! Each night following the Borlaug Dialogue we will post highlights from the day to get you thinking and discussing these topics around the globe. Tuesday of this week we hosted Emiliano Mroue on campus, as part of the World Food Prize Lecture Series, to share the work he is doing in Sierra Leone with The West African Rice Company. He is truly doing amazing work and making a huge impact. We are working on getting this video uploaded to share with all.

Today (Wednesday) we traveled with a group of students to Des Moines to kickoff the Borlaug Dialogue as part of the World Food Prize Events. The afternoon started with Ambassador Kenneth Quinn kicking off the 30th World Food Prize, many great sessions throughout the afternoon, and concluded with a program and reception recognizing the winner of the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application.

Here is a picture at the Hall of Laureates with students and faculty from Hawkeye Community College.

Below we will give brief highlights of each session to spark discussion around the globe! Here is a recap of day one.

Conflict, Stability, and Achieving Global Food Security

• There are three big areas that are causing food insecurity:
• Climate change
• Poor/failed government
• Conflict
• Today we have more people displaced from their homes due to conflict than we have had since World War II.
• In regards to worldwide conflict and stability things are bad now, but they will be far worse three months from now. "It's not going to be pretty, it's not going to be easy, but we must do something."

Global Food Security and National Security

• We must look at more than food availability, but food governance and control.
• Food production is currently good. We must address distribution and price worldwide.
• More frequent extreme weather events will threaten agriculture production.

Food Security in Crisis

• Key to success in all agriculture development projects are strong partnerships.
• One problem is technology is on the shelves in developing countries, but it never reaches the farmer.
• More training and extension services are needed for farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries.

Availability of a Healthy Global Diet

• Obesity rates are increasing worldwide.
• We need improved dietary diversity around the world.
• We need safer storage and to find ways to extend life of fruits and vegetables throughout the year.

Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application

This years award winner is Dr. Andrew Mude of Kenya. Mude was recognized for his work developing an "Index-Based Livestock Insurance" program. In an area where insurance had not existed before he created a system that uses technology from NASA and satellite imagery to identify areas experiencing weather disasters, such as floods and droughts that take animal life, that in turn identifies farmers in these areas and automatically sends insurance checks. 

It was a great first day and we look to continue dialogue tomorrow as we face the challenges and opportunities before us in agriculture and feeding our growing world!

Build the Soil

We started off the morning with our great elementary students with our "what we know about agriculture" lesson, but this time shared it with 4th graders. At the end of the lesson they raised the chain above their head while in a circle and stated "Agriculture feeds the world!" in both Creole and English.

Next we had some down time before our afternoon activities so we loaded up and headed to a project where UCI is helping a woman by building a new house. We got to work up a good sweat with some manual labor prepping for the footings of the house. Pick axes and shovels were the tools of choice although a bowl works in a pinch. 

After lunch we continued with English lessons at the elementary, this time working with the 4th graders on English. As we have advanced through the grade levels it has been great to see the development and ability to speak English grow! Following English we made our way to the university to have a discussion on soil nutrition and plant production. Great emphasis was placed on building the soil and its productivity. Many ideas where exchanged and we challenged the Haitian students to pick one of the practices we brainstormed and experiment with it over the next couple months. We are working on a way to share their results to keep up on their progress. 

Following our discussion with agrculture students we moved to a larger classroom so we could combine medical and agriculture students for a presentation by Julie Grunklee on the importance of bringing agriculture and health together. It was great to have participants with Community Health Initiative (CHI) join us for the presentation and the rest of our time in Haiti. At the conclusion of Julie's presentation we made our way to the roof top of the university to change out batteries in our weather station sensors and watch the sun set over the Haiti landscape. 

We enjoyed pizza for dinner before the men's choir from the area joined us to perform many Haitian numbers before inviting us to join them for their final song in English. At the conclusion of the singing we enjoyed a final Coke by our tree out front and reflected on our experiences and got to know the folks from CHI a little better. We prep for a long time of travel over the next day and a half.