Navigating challenges in climate, conflict, and food security

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Michelle: Looking at the next 20 years, what needs to happen to truly make a difference in rural communities and tackle food insecurity? What is the key ingredient in getting donors to coordinate better and with tangible results? 

Sophia: The most important thing for rural communities is to have a greater share of the economic benefits of agriculture. In developed countries, some of the highest incidences of poverty and exclusion are in rural communities. Money in food systems is not being made on the farm but rather in more concentrated capital processing like food processing centres.

For rural communities to thrive, we need a different model for agriculture that does a better job of capturing capital locally and circulating that capital locally. In the next 20 years, it's going to become more important because there's no resilience without that and we forecast more and larger shocks to the food system as climate change continues inexorably.

In terms of donors and coordination, that’s a big challenge. The fact that development organizations need to answer to taxpayers and leadership interests that often shift, it's hard to then expect cooperation. I appreciate that the Global Donor Platform is a place where these conversations happen, which is crucial. Just allowing people to meet and know one another is already a soft part of helping coordination come about.

Michelle: You played a part in developing the influential CERES2030 report. Do you see the report findings being adequately taken up and used to further food systems transformation?

Sophia: I was part of the project for two critical years. One reassuring thing is that in the deep dive into which interventions work, we didn't turn up anything unexpected. We confirmed that much of what we're doing matters and that we need more of it such as social networks and peer support for farm workers and people in rural communities.

Ceres2030 provided a summary of the science and a clear statement about what worked. It showed the dynamic effects and trade-offs, and how to ensure that what we do has positive spin-offs rather than undermining our objectives. It was all things we knew but confirmed.

Michelle: Your work focuses extensively on the importance of resilient food systems. In these times of crisis, how can we continue to build resilience while also addressing multiple and overlapping emergencies?

Sophia: This is what Ceres 2030 pointed to, that we should be deliberate about what resilience looks like from an international assistance perspective. I would say it's health, social networking, and making sure communities including women and farm workers are not isolated. We know vulnerable communities have more needs than others and those with education and land tenure have more resilience.

We have a range of things that will allow a local community to withstand a shock. It could be managing our freshwater in countries that are investing and paying attention to soil health. We have international tools like agricultural marketing and information systems, to reduce the likelihood of a shock in case of a sudden breakdown in the supply chain like what has happened with the invasion of Ukraine, or a breakdown in production, which can happen with a bad El Niño.

It's understanding that we need some redundancy and allowing the cost of insurance as a way to create efficiency. It's how you don't lose everything the next time there's a shock to the system. We've seen large setbacks in ending hunger when there hasn't been proper risk management in place. If we count that as an efficient way to protect our resources, we'll be building resilience.

Finally, for much of history, rural areas and food production have been a safety net for people who didn't rely on the state. One of the oldest classic ways is to have land or a place in a rural community to go back to, where you can get food. We need to persuade private and public investments in that resilience.