The Chicago Council on Global Affairs Food Security Symposium
How Can Surging Youth Populations Transform Global Food Security?
The global population is expected to reach 9.8 billion people by 2050. Much of this growth is expected to to occur in Africa, South America, South and South East Asia. By 2050, Africa’s population will double, with 1 billion projected to be under 18 years old, and many other regions are experiencing similar trends. This event asked the question of how can we harness the potential of this promising demographic to secure economic growth and stability?
As natural adopters of new innovations and changing technologies, young people are primed to usher in agriculture’s digital revolution. The United States must continue its legacy of leading the efforts to end global hunger and malnutrition government — in partnership with national governments, the private sector, and civil society — to develop a youth-inclusive agricultural transformation agenda. The Symposium brought together global leaders, innovators, disruptors, and trailblazers that are shaping the future of food and agriculture.
Day 1 featured “Solution Sessions” that addressed: Sustaining Planetary Health in the Face of Rising Food Demand with leading multilateral organizations, Stories of Influence with youth leaders from Africa and Asia, Accelerating Growth and Unlocking the Power of Entrepreneurs in Emerging Economies with leading funders and the panel I thought was most impactful was the Food for Social Good with Chef and Activist Tunde Wey, Chef and Author Asha Gomez and WFP2 Advocacy Hub’s Paul Newnham moderated by Mitchell Davis, the EVP of James Beard Foundation.
Day 2 of the event was the symposium that opened with President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Ivo Daalder greeting the audience and setting the stage. The Council’s Head of Food & Agriculture, Alesha Black announced the release of the Youth for Growth Report with panelists Felix Kwame Yeboah, Assistant Professor, International Development, Michigan State University and Bobby Pittman, Managing Partner, Kupanda Capital. Doug Bereuter, Distinguished Fellow, Chicago Council on Global Affairs; President Emeritus, The Asia Foundation then welcomed Bob Corker, US Senator (R-TN); Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee who gave some provocative remarks about the need for innovation in the transportation and global food system for domestic resilience and security.
Check out The Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Youth for Growth Report on Transforming Economies through Agriculture:
The next discussions included Designing the Youth Inclusive Transformation Agenda with pracital looks at human centered design to solutions, Empowering Rural Youth in the Emerging World of Work with a special focus on gender, Marie Rumsby, Senior Manager for Food Security, Hunger, and Nutrition, Global Citizen discussed Building a Movement to Be the Generation; Caleb Harper, Principal investigator and Director, OpenAg Initiative, MIT Media Lab gave a provocative speech about the global food system and how MIT is leading innovations to feed the world in the future.
The Critical Path to Sustainability was then discussed by The Washington Post, The Rise Fund (TPG), Clarmondial, Oxfam America, The World Bank. Connecting the Food System to the Information Economy. My favorite panel of the second day was Connecting the Food System to the Information Economy (see photo above). Mega Trends and the Food System, Aquaculture in Climate Change Africa, Ted McKinney, Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, US Department of Agriculture provided special remarks leading to Discussion — Connecting Local to Global: A Catalyst for Improving Livelihoods.
Why Were We There?
I am a Nonresident Fellow in Food & Agriculture and Global Cities at the Chicago Council. Fishcoin’s approach to provide an open and interoperable standard data network across an ecosystem of trusted partners is relevant across commodities. In addition to Fishcoin, Eachmile Technologies is also developer of mFish and mFarmer. I had the pleasure to meet Linda Kwamboka, developer of mFarm. We connected some dots and look forward to collaborating with mFarm as our farming partner going forward with Safaricom and GSMA. Together, we can connect fishers and farmers to markets to improve their productivity and livelihoods.
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